Premier League 2016-17: Microsoft Bing Predicts Manchester City Title

The 2016-17 Premier League season kicks off on Saturday with the arrival of several world class managers and superstar signings making it one of the most difficult campaigns to predict in recent years.

But Microsoft’s Bing division has had a go anyway. Using the ‘Bing Predict’ engine, it claims Pep Guardiola’s arrival at Manchester City will result in the club picking up 94 points and its third title in six years.

Bing Predicts uses machine learning to analyse and detect various pieces of information from the web and combines this with activity on social network to deliver its predictions. For sport, this includes historical stats such as players, teams, tournament trends, game history and location, along with web searches and social sentiment.

Bing Premier League

Microsoft claims its model is five percent more accurate over other predictions and gambling markets. It has predicted the outcome of other events, such as the winner of the 2014 World Cup, accurately.

The model can be used for other purposes too, such as food and travel, as well as the Oscars.

“Search and data is our game – we’ve predicted the outcome of many sporting events in the past,” boasted And as the start of the beautiful game is just around the corner, we wanted to lay our cards on the table and make an early prediction on how we see the English Premier League shaping up.

“While there are bound to be surprises and upsets along the way, our complex algorithms will continue to take this all in and predict the outcome of every match as we go through the course of the season.”

Bing says Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United will finish second with 89 points, Chelsea third with 88 and Arsenal fourth with the same total. Bournermouth, Burnley and Hull are the three clubs it believes will be relegated to the EFL Championship.

As for last year’s champions Leicester City? They’re predicted to finish 7^th.

Of course, no one saw Leicester winning their first league championship last season – especially not Bing. It thought Arsenal would win the league for the first time since 2004, but they finished in second place.

Excited for the Olympics? Try our sporting IT quiz!