⚽ Frank Ilett & The Uncut Hair Bet

This project predicts Manchester United’s upcoming match outcomes and simulates the probability of consecutive wins — inspired by Frank Ilett’s unique challenge. Frank has declared that he will not cut his hair until Manchester United wins 5 matches in a row. Based on predictions and simulations, it looks like the Red Devils won’t manage a 5-win streak this season, so Frank’s hair will remain uncut until the end of the season.

What This Project Does

• Loads historical Premier League data from E0.csv.
• Calculates team and opponent strength (average points per game).
• Creates a target variable (MU_win) to indicate Manchester United victories.
• Trains a Random Forest model to estimate win probabilities using:
  • Home/away status
  • Opponent strength (average PPG)
• Loads future fixtures and predicts the probability of winning each match.
• Simulates streaks of consecutive wins using Monte Carlo simulations.
• Outputs results to manutd_predictions_fixed.csv for easy review.

Fun Fact

Frank Ilett will not cut his hair until the end of the season, so every predicted win streak is a reminder of his growing mane!

Results

→ Loaded 259 matches from E0.csv
→ Opponent strength (avg PPG) calculated for 20 teams

Manchester United record in data (26 matches):
  Wins   : 12
  Draws  : 9
  Losses : 5

→ Creating target and features...
  → Wins detected: 12

Predicted Upcoming Matches

5-Consecutive Win Simulation

Probability of at least one 5-win streak:
→ 0.0%
→ Low to moderate

⚡ Predicting the Red Devils’ fate — and Frank’s hair — one match at a time!