What happens when you simulate a football season 10,000 times?

You may have noticed by now, but I’ve become slightly obsessed with pre-season predictions. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been scouring every corner of the internet trying to find an edge, something, anything, that might help me figure out where each team could finish next season. Part of it is because I like having receipts to pull out in May. But also… I just really enjoy the simulation side of football. Blame Football Manager. I’ve been hooked on watching seasons play out since I first let the game sim a few years into the future just to see what chaos the AI would produce.

So when I stumbled across a tool called FusionSim, I got that same buzz. And no, this isn’t an advert or paid post, I just thought it was cool enough to write about. I do have a few gripes with it (more on that later), but at its core, FusionSim is basically Football Manager’s season preview screen on steroids.

The premise is simple: FusionSim simulates each of England’s top four leagues, Premier League, Championship, League One, and League Two… 10,000 times. Using a custom in-house model to spit out things like average points totals, title-winning probabilities, promotion chances, relegation odds, and even a most-likely final table. If you’ve ever played a long-term FM save and looked at the media predictions, this feels like a much more in-depth version of that, except it’s not based on your signings or tactics, it’s based on real-world data.

You can dig into individual club pages to see predicted point ranges, simulate alternative league tables by tweaking variables, and even run your own simulations where you manually adjust team strength or prioritise things like transfer activity.

There’s also this brilliantly pointless-but-addictive feature called “How Many Sims Until…” where you can, for example, see how many simulations it takes for Sunderland to win the Premier League, or for Gillingham to go unbeaten.

That said, it’s not perfect. I’ve got a few bones to pick with the model, especially around how it weighs previous season form. It feels a little too anchored to what happened last year, and less responsive to things like summer transfers or new managerial appointments. For instance, it currently has MK Dons finishing in the relegation zone of League Two. I get that they underperformed last season, but they’ve added well and brought in Paul Warne, who knows exactly how to get promoted at this level. Relegation? Feels like a harsh read.

Still, as far as simulation tools go, this is the best I’ve seen outside of FM itself. And unlike FM, you don’t need to sit through loading screens or scout reports… it’s all cleanly presented, full of sliders and graphs, and great for just messing around with for 20 minutes. It’s not going to replace Football Manager (what could?), but it is a fun companion if you’re as addicted to forecasting the future of football as I am.

Whether you’re using it to inform your FM saves, strengthen your fantasy football punts, or just waste time making weird scenarios where Wrexham win the treble, it’s well worth exploring. And if nothing else, it makes you think about the season ahead in a more analytical way. That’s half the fun, right?

Have a go and let me know… are there any predictions it gets bang on? Any that made you roll your eyes in disbelief? I want to know who else has fallen down this simulation rabbit hole.

About the Author

William Reid

William is the admin of Out of Context Football Manager, an X account that focuses on FM news. He's worked for LADbible Group and is VG's resident FM expert.