Everton’s Points Penalty Reduced: What it Means for the Premier League Relegation Battle

Everton have had their points deduction reduced from 10 points to six… but what does the Opta supercomputer say that does to their chances of avoiding relegation?

Everton have had their 10-point penalty for breaching the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules reduced to six points, handing the club a huge boost in their 2023-24 survival bid.

Here, with the help of the Opta supercomputer, we can put an exact figure on their current chances of staying up.

After the original points deduction in November, an independent commission decided to reduce the club’s penalty by four points. This decision was made after the appeals procedure was started.

Sean Dyche’s side have been mired in a relegation battle since being docked 10 points, and they extended a winless run to nine Premier League games at the weekend that has seen them slide down the table. A 95th-minute equaliser for 10-man Brighton denied Everton a first league win since the middle of December, and left them 17th in the Premier League, just one point above the drop zone and having played one game more than 18th-placed Luton.

They did, however, get a point this weekend, becoming them the only team in the Premier League’s bottom five to do so, which increased their chances of surviving. The Opta supercomputer predicted that Everton was the fifth-most likely team to be relegated before their points deduction was lowered to six points. Having been evaluated as more likely (19%) prior to the weekend, they were assigned a 16.4% chance of sinking.

The blow of Lewis Dunk’s late goal taking two points off them on Saturday will have been all but forgotten now, too, with Everton essentially gaining four points in the battle against relegation on Monday. Having moved ahead of Nottingham Forest and Brentford, they are now 15th in the table and have seen their chances of relegation reduce significantly as a result.

In the Opta supercomputer’s latest round of 10,000 simulations – which have been run again after the Premier League published news of the reduction to the punishment – Everton were relegated just 4.4% of the time. They are now the sixth-most likely team to be relegated, with Crystal Palace’s relegation chances rated at 4.6%.

Of course, Everton being less likely to go down has had an effect on everyone else, and all the teams around them saw their relegation chances increase as a result of Monday’s news.

Sheffield United and Burnley were already deemed almost certain for the drop and those probabilities are only going one way. Chris Wilder’s side were said to have a 99.1% chance of relegation before Everton’s news, and that has now gone up to 99.6%. Burnley’s chances have gone from 98.7% up to 99.3%.

Luton, meanwhile, were hit harder, now relegated in 69.3% of the supercomputer’s simulations, up from 62.7% before the reduction in Everton’s penalty.

Forest are by no means out of the woods, and their relegation odds jumped from 16.7% – and only just ahead of Everton’s a few hours ago – to 19.6%. They are now almost five times as likely as Dyche’s side to go down.

The supercomputer still gives Brentford a 2.1% probability of relegation to the Championship ahead of their trip to West Ham on Monday, so even if they dropped to 16th place, they aren’t in too much danger.

Everton’s form means they cannot count themselves as safe any time soon but they responded to their initial punishment with their best run of form of the season, winning four games on the bounce after a home defeat to Manchester United following the announcement.

If this latest news boosts their morale as much as it does their survival hopes, then Dyche’s side could be about to turn a corner and charge up the table.