- The 61 players Arsenal are tipped to sign and the 18 men leaving
- So what did we learn from the opening game?
By Tony Attwood
Following an earlier post, a little group of us were having a debate about what the very first match of the season could actually tell anyone about how whole the league would pan out. And to resolve the argument we decided to call up the stats (which obviously we have) to see what they could tell us. If anything.
So we set out the top seven clubs in the league after one game, that being the seven clubs that have won their first match of the season. Then we looked at where these seven clubs were after one game last season, and where they ended up.
Finally we added in a column showing the difference between where the clubs stood after one game and where they were at the end of the season.
So here is the table showing the position after just one game last season, the position at the end of the season and how far the clubs moved up and down.
| Pos Now | Team | 24/25 Pos after 1 gane | 24/25 Pos at end of season | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 4 | 3 | +1 |
| 2 | Sunderland | 5* | 4* | +1 |
| 3 | Tottenham Hotspur | 12 | 17 | -5 |
| 4 | Liverpool | 3 | 1 | +2 |
| 5 | Nottingham Forest | 11 | 7 | +4 |
| 6 | Arsenal | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 7 | Leeds United | 10* | 1* | +10 |
So looking at that table above, the biggest difference came with Leeds, who were promoted last season. But they were in the Championship, so leaving them aside, the biggest swing from one game to the end of the season was Tottenham going down five places. Four teams moved between nil and two places.
Now we go back to 2023/24
| Pos | Team | 2023/24 Pos after 1 game | 2023/24 Pos at end of season | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Newcastle United | 1 | 7 | -6 |
| 2 | Brighton and Hove | 2 | 11 | -9 |
| 3 | Manchester City | 3 | 1 | +2 |
| 4 | Arsenal | 4 | 2 | +2 |
| 5 | Crystal Palace | 5 | 10 | -5 |
| 6 | Fulham | 6 | 13 | -7 |
| 7 | Manchester United | 7 | 8 | -1 |
This time three of the seven teams moved between nil and three places. But the big difference is that whereas last season only one club dropped its position, the season before, five of the clubs dropped their position.
The largest change was 10 places last season and nine the season before.
This is of course, a very rough and ready calculation – really a bit of fun for the start of the season. But it does suggest that the biggest change we are likely to see is a rise or fall of nine or ten places between the first game and the end of the season.
This is of course, half a league table, which suggests that the measure is not that good a prediction tool, but we can see that ten of the 14 pairs of results show a change of between nil and five places up or down.
So we obviously shouldn’t get too excited by all this, but we might have a look back to last season after two games where the top of the table read…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| 2 | Brighton and Hove Albion | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 6 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 6 |
| 4 | Liverpool | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 4 | 6 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
Already the number of teams on maximum points is down to four, we can still see that three of the four teams that ended up in the top four (Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea) were in the top four after just two games.
I am not sure I’d want to place a bet on three of the top four after two games being in the top four at the end of the season, but certainly the clubs on six points after two games do, from this tiny bit of evidence, seem to be likely to carry that form through to the end of the season.
Our game next Saturday is against Leeds, who beat Everton 1-0 in their first game.
