With lot of stress laid on instincts and experience by pundits on regular talk shows, there can be no denying of the facts and figures. Though not a fan myself of pure statistics they nevertheless provide interesting trends and provide proof for a team’s performance on the pitch. With less than 4 matches to play per team, I feel this is the apt time to reflect upon the season and see if we can infer some predictions for the last month ahead.
Starting with the home league, Manchester United has been the strongest team back at their home ground, P17 W15 L1 D1. In Away table Chelsea has been the strongest with P17 W12 D2 L3. However going deeper interesting figures are thrown up. Like, Arsenal & Chelsea have been defensively the strongest in Home matches conceding only 11 goals apiece. Even with Adebayo & CescPistol injured for considerable spells, Arsenal’s attacking prowess in Away games has no match with them having scored max 34 goals among top 4(which gooners may think to be a sign for Champions League success against ManU). Chelsea’s 3 place even with only 9 home wins and 56 total goals scored can easily be explained by number of clean sheets the likes of Terry and Cech have been able to maintain. Pensioners have 21 till now compared to 13 of Gunners quite rightly highlighting Arsenal’s defensive vows and untimely exit from title race. Studying half-time league threw up even more intriguing results. The T45 version of football (god forbid such thing ever happens) will lead to Chelsea at top, ManU at second and shockingly Fulham & ManCity 3rd & 4th respectively. Scousers are 5th and Arsenal 6th underlining lots of late goal messiahs at work at Anfield, Ashburton Grove and Old Trafford. What can be treated as their consistency of sorts, Toons and WBA remain the bottom in shorter version also.
While 2 Arsenal players figure in Assist table (RVP 2nd with 10 and Fab 4th with 9) none of the gunners have been able to break into top 10 of overall goal scorers so far even with 60 goals scored overall, highlighting the complete break from TH14’s era with both midfield and strikers sharing the goal scoring duty and thankfully removing dependence on a single player. On the other hand for ManU – 48%, Liverpool – 40% & Chelsea – 49% of the goals have been scored just by top two.
Whatever may be made of the competitiveness of the premier league the underlying fact remains the same, i.e. top 4 remains top 4. Consider the matches played between top 4 and rest of the 16. Top 4 have lost just 8 match in the whole campaign so far against bottom 16 ( remove Arsenal from that and rest 3 have lost only a single match apiece). Plenty to boast about. However those who think supremacy of top 4 reconsider again. Among the four, ManU drew only 4 times against bottom 16, Liverpool & Arsenal 9 times and Chelsea 7 times. Clearly ManU’s better performance against rest of BPL teams is the reason for their top league standing, thus highlighting the fact that what needed to win the premier prize is consistency and not the flashes of excellence.
