How far are Arsenal now off the top in terms of points and goals?

 

 

Today in Arsenal’s history: Arsenal become the first English team to beat Milan in the San Siro

• Sheffield United against Arsenal: past results and possible outcomes
• Positive injury news for Arsenal ahead Monday’s game with Sheffield United
• A full list of recent and current posts grouped by topic appears on the home page

With the weekend’s results now in we can see Arsenal’s minimal requirements for the Sheffield United match   We’ve known of course that Arsenal will have to win – anything less would leave the media free to write Arsenal off completely.  But also, with both Manchester C and Liverpool winning the pressure is on for Arsenal to stay in touch.

The top four now reads (data from 11v11)

 

 

So a win takes Arsenal to within one point of Manchester City and two points of Liverpool.  Scoring three goals makes Arsenal the top-scoring team in the league and conceding no more than one goal keeps Arsenal as the best defensive team in the league.  A win of any kind puts Arsenal on its own as the team with the best goal difference in the league.

Indeed Arsenal’s goal difference is already more than twice as good as Tottenham’s, with the highly tipped “Hotspurs” not being quite so highly tipped by the media any more even to get into the Champions League.  Indeed without the “distraction” of European football as the media expressed it, this was going to be the season where they bloomed and blossomed and whatever other agricultural metaphor they were supposed to be indulging in.  

Down the bottom Sheffield United, whom we play tonight, have the worst goal difference in the league, with minus 44 compared to Arsenal’s plus 39.  That is a total difference in goal difference of 83.  It looks like it will take a further punishment of Everton, and one for Nottingham Forest, relating to their budgets in past years, for Sheffield United to escape relegation.

Indeed the difference between the bottom of the Premier League and the top of the Championship can be seen by looking back to the end of last season when the Championship figures and current Premier League figures for the clubs are considered next to each other.

For there we can see that at the present rate Sheffield United is probably going to end up with around 33 goals this season compared with 73 goals last season (when admittedly they played four more games).

In fact only Luton Town of the three relegated clubs last year look like coming anywhere near last season’s goal total.  Last season they were running at 1.24 goals a match and they are actually doing better at 1.42 goals a game.

 

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Burnley 2013	46	29	14	3	87	35	52	101
19	Burnley 2014	27	3	4	20	25	60	-35	13
2	Sheffield United 2013	46	28	7	11	73	39	34	91
20	Sheffield United 2014	26	3	4	19	22	66	-44	13
3	Luton Town 2013	46	21	17	8	57	39	18	80
18	Luton Town 2014	26	5	5	16	37	54	-17	20

 

In terms of defence Sheffield United have been letting in almost three times as many goals as last time around.

If the current level of results stays the same as so far, for the rest of the season, the points totals of the three relegated team will be 29, 19 and 18 points compared with last season’s 34, 31 and 25  points for the three relegated clubs.

Indeed I think there has been quite a change in the way relegated clubs handle their time back in the second tier, for whereas clubs would previously spend big on transfers upon getting promoted, in the hope of staying up, it has been realised that where that policy fails (as it generally does) the result can cripple the club financially for years to come.  So instead the new plan is to yo-yo up and down for a few seasons before finally having enough financial clout to stay up in the Premier League for a second year and on that basis add a player or two to extend it for a third year.

As a result the target for promoted clubs is to finish 17th, and this does show quite a shift from the policy of Nottingham Forest for example who finshed 16th last season and got to the semi-final of the league cup – but spent a fortune in so doing.  In 2022/23 their net spend on players was around £150m.   This season it has been a further £110m (figures from TransferMarkt)

Such an approach, which makes a lot of sense in terms of keeping the club in business, does mean that two or even three clubs each season are simply not entering  the game.

To see the difference we might compare the current situation with 2017/18 in which the relegated clubs got between 31 and 33 points. The following season the points of the three clubs going down were 16, 26 and 34.   In 2019/20 the points were 21 and two 34s.  In 2020/21 it was 23, 26, 28.  In 2021/22 it was 22, 23, 35. And last year it was exactly the same.

So in effect each season, one or two clubs that come up are not spending all their new PL income on staying up, but instead are keeping much of the team as it were, and using the PL money to pay off accumulated debts.

It reduces the competitiveness of the league considerably, just as has happened with the race to the top four where in recent years Manchester City has booked a place before the season starts.  In effect each season around three or four of the 20 clubs know what will happen before they start.  Manchester C know because of their finances and worldwide structure they will win, and two or three of the promoted clubs are reconciled to go back down and keep the extra money to pay off past debts.