West Ham have effectively 3 games in hand at present
Here is a snapshot of how the battle to avoid relegation looks currently, in the alt-3 Premier League table:
While West Ham are in 18th place in the official Premier League table, the alt-3 calculation puts the Hammers in 16th place instead, above both Aston Villa and Bournemouth.
To see why that is, we can look at the current alt-3 schedule-strength charts:
While Bournemouth face an exceptionally
tough run-in to the end of the season —
which includes
matches against all of the top 3 teams in the league — West Ham have already
played all of their matches against the top 3, and they have a (relatively) easier
run-in, on paper at any rate. The difference is quantified by the alt-3 method:
West Ham currently have, in effect, 3.3 matches in hand over Bournemouth (that’s
the difference between 28.9 and 25.6, from the table as shown above).
And the Hammers also have effectively 2.4 games in hand over Aston Villa.
That’s enough to lift West Ham above both Bournemouth and Aston Villa, in the current alt-3 table (which coherently takes account of this kind of schedule-strength imbalance).
This is emphatically not a prediction of anything: in order to escape relegation, West Ham would still need to actually win some of those remaining “relatively easy” matches! But the alt-3 table does give a more realistic picture than does the official league table at this point in the season, as far as current standings are concerned.
To see any Premier League team’s schedule-strength graph, just click on the team name in the current alt-3 league table.