We can we learn after the first 14 games? A comparison with past years.

Posted on by Tony Attwood

By Tony Attwood

This season there appears to have been a bit of an upsurge in goal scoring with the top six having knocked in 173 goals so far.  The difference between the top club and the sixth club is 13 points.

P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Chelsea 14 11 1 2 32 11 +21 34
2 Arsenal 14 9 4 1 33 14 +19 31
3 Liverpool 14 9 3 2 35 18 +17 30
4 Manchester City 14 9 3 2 30 15 +15 30
5 Tottenham Hotspur 14 7 6 1 24 10 +14 27
6 Manchester United 14 5 6 3 19 16 +3 21

So what does this mean?  Does it mean this is how the top six will be at the end of the season?  Are we really scoring more than before?

I’ve given my calculator a good telling off for the errors in the last two posts which have used numbers in them, so we’ll see how accurate I can be this time.   You may correct my errors, but please do it politely.

 2015/16

In this and the tables below I’ve added a column to the left to show where the clubs ultimately ended up.   Here we had 145 goals as opposed to 173 this year.  The difference between top and sixth at this stage was six points.  Interestingly the top six after 14 games gave a clue as to five of the ultimate top six, but the order was not maintained.

Final pos Now P W D L F A GD Pts
4 1 Manchester City 14 9 2 3 30 14 +16 29
1 2 Leicester City 14 8 5 1 29 21 +8 29
5 3 Manchester United 14 8 4 2 20 10 +10 28
2 4 Arsenal 14 8 3 3 24 12 +12 27
3 5 Tottenham Hotspur 14 6 7 1 24 11 +13 25
8 6 Liverpool 14 6 5 3 18 15 +3 23

2014/15

This year only four of the top six were still there at the end.  Goal scoring thus far was 157 and the points difference was 13.  But here three of the final top four were in their ultimate positions after 14 games.

Final pos Now P W D L F A GD Pt
1 1 Chelsea 14 11 3 0 33 11 +22 36
2 2 Manchester City 14 9 3 2 31 14 +17 30
7 3 Southampton 14 8 2 4 24 10 +14 26
4 4 Manchester United 14 7 4 3 24 16 +8 25
12 5 West Ham United 14 7 3 4 23 17 +6 24
3 6 Arsenal 14 6 5 3 22 15 +7 23

2013/14

This time the top four at the end were in the top four places after 14 games, but not in the right order.  Also all the top six after 14, were in the top six at the end.   162 goals had been scored by now.  The difference in points between top and sixth was 10.

Final pos  Now P W D L F A GD Pt
4 1 Arsenal 14 11 1 2 29 10 +19 34
3 2 Chelsea 14 9 3 2 28 14 +14 30
1 3 Manchester City 14 9 1 4 40 14 +26 28
2 4 Liverpool 14 8 3 3 30 17 +13 27
5 5 Everton 14 7 6 1 22 13 +9 27
6 6 Tottenham Hotspur 14 7 3 4 13 15 -2 24

2012/13

The 1-2-3 remained the same from this date to the end of the season.  157 goals had been scored and the difference between top and sixth was 11 points.

Final pos Now P W D L F A GD Pts
1 1 Manchester United 14 11 0 3 33 18 +15 33
2 2 Manchester City 14 9 5 0 27 10 +17 32
3 3 Chelsea 14 7 5 2 24 13 +11 26
8 4 West Bromwich Albion 14 8 2 4 24 18 +6 26
4 5 Tottenham Hotspur 14 7 2 5 25 23 +2 23
5 6 Everton 14 5 7 2 24 18 +6 22

 2011/12

First and second were sorted after 14 games, as were the top six but the order changed.  188 goals had been scored and the difference in points between top and sixth was 12.

Final pos  Now P W D L F A GD Pt
1 1 Manchester City 14 12 2 0 48 13 +35 38
2 2 Manchester United 14 10 3 1 31 13 +18 33
4 3 Tottenham Hotspur 13 10 1 2 29 16 +13 31
6 4 Chelsea 14 9 1 4 31 17 +14 28
3 5 Arsenal 14 8 2 4 30 23 +7 26
5 6 Newcastle United 14 7 5 2 19 15 +4 26

Overall what have we found

Season Goals G.D. Top? Top2? Top4? Outsider
2016/17 173 13
2015/16 145 6 N N N 1st
2014/15 157 13 Y Y N 7th
2013/14 162 10 N N Y 5th
2012/13 157 11 Y Y N 8th
2011/12 188 12 Y Y N 5th

The columns “Top?” etc ask the question, did the position after 14 games tell us who would win the league – yes or no.

 So with a comparison over the six years, yes this is a good year for goals, but not the top – 2011/12 had more goals scored by the top six clubs at this point.

In terms of the difference in points between 1st and 6th this season is at the extreme position, with 13 points difference, but five of the six years examined had a points difference of between 10 and 13, so this is pretty much in the normal range.

But does the league position after 14 games tells us who will win the league?  In three of the past five seasons yes.   Does it predict the top two?  Again in three of five seasons yes.  But it only predicted the complete top four once.

As for the “outsider” the team that suddenly pops up out of nowhere.  Once (obviously Leicester) that team won the league.  Otherwise the deal was to end outside the top four.

So this season is at the top end of the statistics for what happens after 14 games, and if you wanted to bet on the favourites the final outcome of the league will be Chelsea first, Arsenal second.

But that is not a given as in two of the last three years the position of the top two has certainly changed around.

One more thing, this is our best league goal scoring record through the first 14 games of the seasons considered.  Before this season only one team has got more than 33 goals after 14 games in the tables above.  Which is surely a fairly positive situation.

Found any errors?  Be gentle.  It’s meant to be a bit of fun, and I’ve been working all day!

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18 Replies to “We can we learn after the first 14 games? A comparison with past years.”

  1. Excellent work, Tony!

    (Shhhhhhh, Tony, there were two teams with more than 33 goals. OK, you’re right, it’s just one team but they did it twice – Manchester City scored 48 (including 5 at WHL and 6 at Old Trafford) in 2011-12 and 40 in 2013-14. Both times they won the league.)

  3. The average scoring over the 6 years is 163 2/3. The variance (correct for finite sample size) is 1343.2, which gives a standard deviation of 36.6 (and change). The largest deviation (188) is only 24 1/3 from the average, which is less than one standard deviation. It is highly unlikely that any of these numbers is statistically unique.

    The best estimate we have for the number of goals scored in that interval is our mean (163 2/3). We are reasonably sure that the true rate is within 14.96 times a small multiplier (near 1) of this sample mean (if I remembered std error calculation properly).

    —

    Oh, it appears Dan Crowley is at a trial on a new loan in Holland.

  4. Great article posting. But let whatever statistical calculations there might be out there this time which will support Arsenal efforts in this season’s PL campaign to lift the title fail to materialize and be thrown into the trash bin. For such statistics are of no any use to Arsenal’s quest to capture the title this season.

    Yes, statistics are there to show the trend of how a certain occurrence of event has been moving so as to enabled a forecasted projection be made for the next occurrence of event in line.

    In this wise, as statistical calculation sometimes swerved away from a forecasted course of regular line of calculations and thus failed to conform to the order in trend, so too it’ll be in the case of Arsenal this season. For, we’ve not won the PL title for the past 12 season PL campaigns. And therefore, it’s about time this statistical calculations in trend fail this season for Arsenal’s glory sake. Just as it failed last season in the case of Leicester City.

  5. Sorry for my typo error of omitting the word ‘not’ in my just last comment posting. I ment to type ‘will not support Arsenal efforts in this season’s PL campaign…..

  7. The 2 Voyager satellites are a long way from Earth. To point a radio receiver in their direction and look at the signal received, you would be hard pressed to see that there is anything there that wasn’t random.

    An untrained person, “knowing” that the signal came from a man made object, could probably find a JPEG, TIFF, GIF or some other image in a long enough stream of the data. And maybe they could claim that the image was of an alien. As near as I can tell, neither of those satellites send those kinds of images.

    And yet, NASA continues to get data from both Voyager satellites. NASA doesn’t have to consider all possible meanings of what it is receiving, it only has to consider what is possible for those satellites to send. Which is how it can continue to receive data from them.

    Nobody has a model for how a football season will play out. Or rather, nobody has THE model. Hence, we have to treat all of the data we receive as if there is no applicable model.

    All I did, was show in one way (and not being very rigorous), that it is unlikely that there is a statistically significant trend present. Maybe if you try a different method and use more rigor, you can show that there is a trend?

    A large part of football results is just “luck”. Statistical noise by another name. In 2015/16, ManC finished above ManU because of detail beyond points acquired (points were the same, 66). There is no statistical argument to show that the performance of ManC over the season was “better” than ManU produced. Mankind (in the guise of The Premier League and The FA) decided that they needed means to break “ties”, and so the arbitrary rule they used set ManC above ManU.

    If it was possible to replay the universe, except that instead of of Rooney eating Wheatabix for breakfast on the first day of the season instead of Cherios; we might find that the fine detail of how things played out would result in ManU being above ManC.

    But what I have been trying to point out with statistics, is that in such a scenario, it is entirely possible that the spuds would have finished above Arsenal. We are replaying the universe except changing what seems like a completely insignificant detail. But, it is also possible in such a replay, that Arsenal finished first (above Leicester).

    The league only rewards what happens at a particular instant, with a particular set of detail. The league is not set up to find out which is best, only to find out which team is approximately best. And so, in 2015/16 it rewarded Leicester with the title of EPL Champion.

    If you need more thoughts on where I am coming from, you could read about the various “ensembles” that are used in Statistical Mechanics.

  8. @Gord,. Well said.

    It is safe to say “ARSENAL is by far (lightyears) the greatest team the world has ever seen”

  9. No doubt D Arsenal is d best team on earth! My only worry is d apparent lack of consistency wich I believe is in d domain of d players; in dis wise, I tink d players shuld lift demselves up, talk more among denselves, encourage eachoda more, bond more together nd take unanimous decisions on how to handle opponents,by dis I meaqn play for eachoda nd as a unit; I hve no doubt dat wit d present trend if maintained nd focused dis season is. Arsenal’s season everytin is pointing to it for those wit decerning minds! Shalom!!!

  11. Interestingly, the team that had scored the most goals after 14 games won the league, irrespective of position, except Leicester who were -1
    Liverpool have scored the most so far…… gulp ……
    But it would suggest a congested title race this year

  12. This makes very interesting reading.Great job Tony, Gord.

    I love stats…it educates the articulate and encourages the intelligent to go the extra mile whenever he/she finds self in the wrong side of it.

    I think dear Gunners should take a deeper look at this present team. There are many positives from not just 14 league matches so far but all the 23 matches of the season bar the EFL Cup match against Southampton. Let me save my observations till my post coming shortly.

  13. @ Gord – 08/12/2016 at 11:54 pm – I really couldn’t envisage myself living in a world (statistical or otherwise !) where there is no St. Totteringham’s Day ! What kind of a balance in the force is that ?
    Such a scenario is even too scary to contemplate ! Admittedly they did come close last season , but then the natural and inevitable balance was rightly restored , when it truly mattered. Somethings are pre-ordained !

    Maybe when the Spuds do finally get to win the EPL , the Arsenal would probably be playing in a league in a galaxy far , far away ?

  14. Here is a very good example of the inevitably of the universe and the order of things .

    A young college girl at a bus stop spotted a handsome man and without hesitation went up to him and said, “You look cute.. I like you.”

    The man out of shock simply placed his hand on her shoulder and said, “My dear, this love and infatuation are all nothing. You are too young to be behaving like this. Please go home and study hard so that you can have a good career and successful life.”..

    He then placed a piece of paper on her hand and said, “I have written some words of wisdom for you. Read them before you go to sleep.”
    And then he walked away.

    The girl went back to her hostel in shame and before she slept she opened up the paper and read thus: “Are you blind?? My wife was standing right behind me. Any way, this is my number. Call me anytime. ………..
    By the way, I like you too!”

    See ? Men will always be men ! You can bet on it !

  15. Too much alcohol , sexy babes and extra marital affairs are a man’s worst enemies . But remember ,…….
    a man who runs away from his enemies IS a coward !

  18. Tony what happened in the 2012/13 season. Did Arsenal not finish in the top 4?. Anyway it did not take away the quality of the write up.

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