By Tony Attwood
- The Sun says Arsenal fans are revolting, but actually the prospects are wonderful
- This is not the pre-season we wanted, but there is one great shining light
There’s no doubt that in terms of results, the pre-season hasn’t been as sparkling as we may have hoped, and so with another game coming up late this afternoon (with the match against Athletic Club at 5pm today) and tickets still available (at least at 8am today) I began to ponder. Does pre-season tell us much?
And going on from that point do the opening games of the season tell us much more? I am not at all sure the pre-season games tell us much at all, because they are so prone to being used as experiments by the manager in terms of who plays where, and indeed of getting players fit.
But maybe the opening six or so games in a season can give us more indication of what will happen by the end of the season – especially where the new recruits have been signed in good time and the team is already fairly settled by the start of the league campaign.
(And actually there is a double bonus that can be found here – for clubs that have used to pre-season to get a settled side, have also revealed to the opposition exactly how they are going to play. Whereas clubs that give all their new players a run-out in pre-season have not actually told the opposition for the first match what the line-up is going to look like.
A year ago, we had five players incoming: three permanent transfers (Raya, Calfiori and Merino) and two loanees (Neto and Sterling, neither of whom I felt made an impact, although that’s a bit hard on Neto as he hardly got a chance).
Last summer, six players went on transfers (Smith Rowe, Nketiah, Ramsdale, Elneny) and five on loans (Nelson, Vieira, Lokonga, Tavares, and Hein.
And remembering that level of change, I thought it might be interesting to be reminded of what the table last season looked after six games, compared with the end of the season.
So this is the league table after six games, with a final column added showing the final league position for 2024/25. The table is dated 1 October 2024.
| 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 |
All of the top five clubs after six games were within one position of their final place in the league, after six games, and although there was a bit more variation later on down the table – Tottenyham are the prime example – one could say there wasn’t much point playing the whole season since after six games we knew what was what.
But was that a freak result? I went back one more season to see…. and hereafter six games, eight out of ten were within three places of their final position.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | Ened | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 3 | 13 | 18 | 1 |
| 2 | Liverpool | 6 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 15 | 5 | 10 | 16 | 3 |
| 3 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 6 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 18 | 8 | 10 | 15 | 11 |
| 4 | Tottenham Hotspur | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 15 | 7 | 8 | 14 | 5 |
| 5 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 11 | 6 | 5 | 14 | 2 |
| 6 | Aston Villa | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 10 | 2 | 12 | 4 |
| 7 | West Ham United | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 11 | 10 | 1 | 10 | 9 |
| 8 | Newcastle United | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 16 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 7 |
| 9 | Manchester United | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 10 | -3 | 9 | 8 |
| 10 | Crystal Palace | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 7 | -1 | 8 | 6 |
So while the results of pre-season games might not be that good an indicator of where a club is going to end up at the end of the season, (and thus the match against Athletic Club at 5pm today – tickets are still available (at least at 8am today) – that is not the case for the opening six games of the season.
In short, despite all the excitement and negativity swirling around in the media during the summer, we don’t need much time to know how the season is going to work out. Six games give us a clue.
Of course, we can’t see the whole table exactly as it will look, and there is always the chance of a club doing a Tottenham, being eighth after six games and then sinking so far that even relegation was an option. But we can get a clue. For each of the last two seasons, five of the clubs in the top six after six games were in the top six at the end of the season.
Indeed, unless the bookies are reading this, you could possibly work out a way of placing a bet around the top six at the end of the season. Not sure what odds you would get on five out of six right, but it could be worth exploring.
Interestingly, this actually seems a much better way of predicting the final league tables than any reference to pre-season friendlies, which of course can be used for getting players fit and for format experimentation.
So we should say this approach can give an indication of how clubs will perform in the league thereafter – and it can be a better indication than the pre-season friendly games. And that is logical – players arrive at different times, they move house, they are often without the rest of the family for a while, they are trying to cope with the language… and the club is filling the gap of players who have left.
Of course, there are a couple of major changes there – Fulham fell five places and Tottenham (as you might happen to remember) fell 11. So we are talking about maybe 80% of the top half of the league staying within a place or two of where they are after six games.
And why has the media never picked up on this? Well, it would rather spoil their whole approach if we pretty much knew the answer after just 15% of the season.
