- The proof: spending money on transfers takes a club DOWN the league
- Manchester City fined again, and yet it seems to mean nothing
- The courts are starting to get involved in issues of abuse of youngsters in sport
By Tony Attwood
The media has a vested interest in portraying the Premier League as unpredictable since that keeps readers, listeners and viewers paying attention. But really is that how it is? Or is it perhaps possible accurately to predict outcomes after just a handful of games?
Of course, one might argue that no, it isn’t possible to make such predictions, because if it were possible to make predictions after half a dozen games, the media would do this.
Yet I remain suspicious, not least because one of the great problems with football reporting is that those doing the reporting have vested interests. For example, the media tends to pump up the summer transfer rumours stories because there is not much else to report on in the summer – as there are few other stories around.
Transfer rumours are thus there to keep our interest in football alive. And what is very much not mentioned (except here) is that what we actually have is the annual insanity of 97% or 98% of the players who are suggested to be coming to Arsenal, not coming at all. That dismal percentage of success in terms of predictions is then never mentioned by the media, although any specific failures that are mentioned are put down to being Arsenal’s fault, rather than the failure of the journalist to predict accurately. And then the whole silly process is repeated in each window, always ignoring the fact that last summer the success rate in predicting transfers was only 3%. Or fewer.
Of course part of the problem is that even when the transfers are completed, most of the time the imcoming players don’t have the impact that the clubs want. If you missed it you might like to see our piece on how spending money on transfers takes a club DOWN the league
And that piece made me wonder if there might be predictions that can be made about how the league title will pan out, which the media refuse to consider, perhaps on the basis that it would actually reduce their readership if we (for example) knew who the top four would be at the end of the season, before the season even started.
Contemplating this I realised that the media don’t actually suggest that the opening half dozen games tell us that much about where the season will end, since they obviously want us to keep reading whatever stuff they publish each day.
But breaking this trend to some degree the Athletic did recently run the headline “the opening few games are often decisive in building momentum to set the tone for the campaign.”
Of course, if, after half a dozen league games you could make a fair guess as to which clubs are going to be in the top half dozen and thus qualifying for Europe the season after, that might take some of the fun out of the rest of the season. So to check this out I went back to the 2024/25 season and looked at the league table after six games, and then for my own amusement added one more column at the end, to show where the club actually finished.
The table below shows the Premier League top ten on 16 September 2024 with the clubs’ final positions at the end.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | End | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 2 | 10 | 15 | 1 |
| 2 | Manchester City | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 14 | 6 | 8 | 14 | 3 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 5 | 7 | 14 | 2 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 15 | 7 | 8 | 13 | 4 |
| 5 | Aston Villa | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 9 | 3 | 13 | 6 |
| 6 | Fulham | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 5 | 3 | 11 | 11 |
| 7 | Newcastle United | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 11 | 5 |
| 8 | Tottenham Hotspur | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 12 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 17 |
| 9 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 10 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 8 |
| 10 | Nottingham Forest | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 9 | 7 |
Now the first thing to note is that after six games, the top four were the same top four as at the end of the season. The only difference is that Arsenal moved above Manchester C. And that change wasn’t too unexpected since the clubs were only separated by one goal after six games
The big losers were Fulham who sank from sixth down to 11th., and the almighty Tottenham Hots who sank from eighth to 17th. Nottingham Forest were also movers, going up from tenth to seventh. But the top four then were the top four at the end.
So yes, on that basis it hardly seems worth all the fuss and bother. Play the opening six and although you don’t get an exact prediction of the season, it’s not too far off.
Looking at the bottom six we find however much more variation, although having five clubs that had not won a single one of their opening six games does show the sort of problem the lower clubs have.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | End | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | Ipswich Town | 6 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 10 | -5 | 4 | 19 |
| 16 | Everton | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 15 | -8 | 4 | 13 |
| 17 | Leicester City | 6 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 12 | -4 | 3 | 18 |
| 18 | Crystal Palace | 6 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 9 | -4 | 3 | 12 |
| 19 | Southampton | 6 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 12 | -9 | 1 | 20 |
| 20 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 6 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 16 | -10 | 1 | 16 |
So we can’t say it is all over after six games at the foot of the table, as it pretty much is at the top. What we can see from this however is the impact that playing in the Euoropa final had on ManU and Tottenham H. This is the table of the last six games.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | End |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Man Utd | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 9 | -3 | 4 | 17 |
| 18 | Southampton | 6 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 9 | -6 | 2 | 20 |
| 19 | Tottenham | 6 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 16 | -12 | 1 | 19 |
| 20 | Ipswich | 6 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 15 | -12 | 1 | 19 |
So six games into the season we don’t really know who is going down, but we certainly can have a fairly good idea of the top four by the end of the season. And if a club is going to get into a Cup Final, it needs to have enough points by the time of the semi-final, to avoid relegation, as it may not get many more.
