- What lies behind Man City’s Premier League Capitulation?
- Arsenal has the best defence in the league – and an attack that is sparkling too
By Tony Attwood
The media tend to make very little (if anything at all) of the Last Six Games table, instead just occasionally quoting an individual club’s recent rise or decline, without reference to what the rest of the league has been up to of late.
I suppose this is because they think it might confuse people, although I did have one journalist say to me that they thought it could be misleading because it was influenced by a run of fixtures.
And yet the run of fixtures is exactly what does influence where a club is in the league, especially in the early parts of the season as we saw with this year’s Arsenal away fixture list where game after game involved a lot of travel and matches against other top teams. And journalists do leap upon recent form when it suits their thesiis.
Of course in the end it does all even out, since every team plays all the others twice, but a run of poor results can cause enormous psychological damage to both management and players.
But whether you consider constant travelling and the question of which clubs each team plays to have an effect or not, the Last Six table is the best guide to form we have, and so as we come to the pause for Christmas it is worth considering the table in full, just for once.
Let’s first take a look at the top seven.
The top three clubs in the last six table are the three clubs that are moving ahead in the actual league table although the order is different. And in fact rather curiously the only outlier among the seven clubs with the best performances in their last six games is Crystal Palace, which emphasises that Arsenal’s two victories over them in the last couple of games was not simply a big team facing a little team – Palace have been doing rather well of late. In simple terms, in the League, Palace have had but one defeat in the lats six – that at home to Arsenal.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chelsea | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 16 | 6 | +10 | 16 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 16 | 4 | +12 | 14 |
| 3 | Liverpool | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 18 | 10 | +8 | 14 |
| 4 | Bournemouth | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 6 | +6 | 13 |
| 5 | Nottingham Forest | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 9 | -1 | 12 |
| 6 | Aston Villa | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 9 | 9 | 0 | 10 |
| 7 | Crystal Palace | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 11 | -1 | 9 |
We might also look at the goals scored in the last six games – the top three clubs are not out of sight but they are knocking in the goals very regularly.. But it is goals scored where the top six table differs from the League table as a whole, for there the top-scoring team across the season so far is the mighty Tottenham Hots. Indeed this season they have scored two more than Arsenal and five more than Chelsea and Liverpool – but that hasn’t been enough to keep them in the top half of the league.
But defences are also interesting with Liverpool having conceded ten in the last six games, only one fewer than Palace. Now this is particularly interesting because in the season as a whole Liverpool and Arsenal are the two teams with the best defensive records, each having conceded 16. But we can see from the “last six” table that ten of these have come in the last six matches for Liverpool.
Of course that might simply be a wobble which Liverpool will now pull out of, but it is a welcome sign of vulnerability nonetheless.
Moving down to the middle part of the table we get…
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | Newcastle U | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 14 | 10 | +4 | 8 |
| 9 | West Ham U | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 9 | 11 | -2 | 8 |
| 10 | Tottenham Hots | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 16 | 12 | +4 | 7 |
| 11 | Brentford | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 7 |
| 12 | Everton | 6 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 7 |
| 13 | Manchester U | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 10 | -1 | 7 |
| 14 | Fulham | 6 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 9 | -1 | 7 |
| 15 | Wolverhampton W | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 11 | 13 | -2 | 6 |
This is interesting in that it confirms that these clubs that are middle of the table overall are in fact just plodding along as normal in recent matches. Fulham are doing worse of late and West Ham better of late, but really the only notable fact here is that two of Wolverhampton’s three victories this season have come in the last six games. They are still not doing well, but they are doing better of late than the overall table suggests.
So what of the bottom of the league? Well, this is where we really do have a bit of a surprise, unless you’ve been following the league very closely. We might expect the three promoted clubs to be doing poorly because that is what has happened each season of late. At least two of the three promoted teams immediately go down. But here they are joined by Manchester City, (last season’s champions), and Brighton and Hove who are currently 10th in the league and are still being praised as a remarkable club.
And yes they are indeed, but not in the last six games.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | Brighton &H | 6 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 11 | -3 | 6 |
| 17 | Manchester C | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 12 | -5 | 4 |
| 18 | Ipswich Town | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 4 | 10 | -6 | 4 |
| 19 | Leicester C | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 16 | -9 | 4 |
| 20 | Southampton | 6 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 15 | -11 | 2 |
Of course the Last Six table is not an absolute guide to the future, but when considering the next match it can be a better indicator than the full league table. Although for Arsenal’s next match, perhaps the last six table doesn’t make too much difference. We’re at home to Ipswich.
