- Sun newspaper vanishes into wild weird fantasy land of a curse
- Arsenal have shown they have the defence and attack to win the league this season
By Tony Attwood
If you are a regular reader of my ramblings, you’ll know that, rather unlike most commentators (either professional or amateur like myself) I quite like to see what history tells us about how things are going this season.
And in relation to this, I have been exploring how this season, after five games, compares with previous Arsenal seasons. And it turns out that, despite being second in the league, this is actually Arsenal’s worst start to the league since 2021!
But in terms of goals scored, this is the second-best season since 2020!!
So, with such contradictory findings, I thought it might be interesting, in the light of Arsenal being second in the league, to see what normally happens to clubs that are top of the league after five games. Do they always go on and win the league? Or is this always a false start with the club at the top after five games, then slipping down by the end of the season?
Thus, what I decided to do was to take the five games that we have already had as a marker and look at which club was top of the league after five games. And then what I decided to look at this time was where the club that was top of the league after five matches in previous seasons actually ended up, and how much change there was.
In short, I wanted to know, could we actually tell who was going to win the league, after five games, or was it still all “up for grabs now” as the old timers would have it.
To do this, I evolved the chart shown below, so you can see all the details that were needed, which of course were not very many – simply which team was top after five games that season and where they ended up at the end of the season.
And just in case you are still a working person, and you think this is a silly waste of time, just wait until you are retired and see what you do all day long…..
So just to explain, for each season, what you see below in column two is which club was top after five games and then where that club ended up at the end of the season. Thus, for example, on 23 September 2024, the league table read
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 13 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 1 | 9 | 12 |
| 3 | Aston Villa | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 7 | 3 | 12 |
| 4 | Arsenal | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 11 |
And we also know that at the end of the 2024/25 season, Manchester City came third in the league, so we can now complete the chart below to get a clue as to how much the league table after five matches tells us about the final outcome.
| Season | Top after Five | Position of Top club after five Games, by season’s End |
|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | Manchester City | 3rd |
| 2023/24 | Manchester City | `1st |
| 2022/23 | Arsenal | 2nd |
| 2021/22 | Chelsea | 3rd |
| 2020/21 | Everton | 10th |
| 2019/20 | Liverpool | 2nd |
In fact, only once in the six years covered by this little chart has the club that has been top of the league after five games also ended up top of the league at the end of the season. So, although Liverpool seems to be marching ahead, and of course, they may well win the league, we can’t tell; it is by no means all done and dusted. The general rule is that the club that is top after five DOES NOT win the league.
This season might of course be one of those exceptions, and the team that is top after five do go on and win the title, but there’s no need to give your season ticket to your grandson yet (not that I am ever advocating that as it would be against the terms and conditions.
And here is one more snippet of info that I carried with me as I was playing around with this data. The Arsenal position after five games in detail, with a note as to where the club ended up at the season’s close.
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | End | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | AFC 2025 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 2 | 8 | 10 | |
| 4 | AFC 2024 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 11 | 2nd |
| 4 | AFC 2023 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 4 | 5 | 13 | 2nd |
| 1 | AFC 2022 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 13 | 4 | 9 | 15 | 2nd |
| 13 | AFC 2021 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 9 | -7 | 6 | 5th |
| 6 | AFC 2020 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 9 | 8th |
| 10 | AFC 2019 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 8 | 8th |
And here’s yet one more thought I am offering at the moment. Thus far, Arsenal have the best goal difference in the league and the best defensive record in the league. And that has occurred in a run of five games, including what presumably is going to be one of the hardest in the season: Liverpool away.
I just thought I would mention it.
