Does the league table after six games tell us much about the future?

By Tony Attwood

This season we have the worst start to a season since 2011/12.  In that season after six league games the table looked like this

Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Manchester United 6 5 1 0 22 5 17 16
2 Manchester City 6 5 1 0 19 5 14 16
3 Chelsea 6 4 1 1 12 7 5 13
4 Newcastle United 6 3 3 0 7 3 4 12
5 Liverpool 6 3 1 2 8 8 0 10
6 Tottenham Hotspur 5 3 0 2 9 9 0 9
7 Stoke City 6 2 3 1 4 6 -2 9
8 Aston Villa 6 1 5 0 7 5 2 8
9 Norwich City 6 2 2 2 7 8 -1 8
10 Queens Park Rangers 6 2 2 2 5 7 -2 8
11 Everton 5 2 1 2 6 6 0 7
12 Wolverhampton Wanderers 6 2 1 3 5 8 -3 7
13 Arsenal 6 2 1 3 9 14 -5 7

Today we are 10th with nine points.  Two points better.  Then in 2011/12 we had a goal difference of minus five, today it is +1, and thus we are also six goals better off.  Here is the league table today for comparison.

Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Everton 6 4 1 1 14 9 5 13
2 Liverpool 6 4 1 1 15 14 1 13
3 Aston Villa 5 4 0 1 12 5 7 12
4 Leicester City 6 4 0 2 13 8 5 12
5 Leeds United 6 3 1 2 12 9 3 10
6 Southampton 6 3 1 2 10 9 1 10
7 Crystal Palace 6 3 1 2 8 9 -1 10
8 Wolverhampton Wanderers 6 3 1 2 6 8 -2 10
9 Chelsea 6 2 3 1 13 9 4 9
10 Arsenal 6 3 0 3 8 7 1 9

So what should we do?  We know that in 2011/12 the clamour was one of “Wenger Out!” led by a combination of newspaper reporters and bloggers.  And the clamour rose and rose, and then faded away, because … well at the end of the season we came third, and were in the Champions League once again.   Those newspaper people who tell us this is the worst start in nine years, seem not to know that.

Third may currently seem like a distant dream, but the fact is that in 2011/12 when after six games we languished in 13th place, and “fans” were calling for the manager to be axed, we were heading for a perfectly decent position – at least by recent standards.  We ended up third.

So should we worry that we are 10th in the league at the moment?

Here is a table showing where we have been after six games each season recently, how many points we had then, and where we ended up – plus how we did in the FA Cup

Season After six games position After six games points End of Season position End of season point FA Cup
2011/12 * 13th 7 pts 3rd 70 pts R5
2012/13 * 7th 9 pts 4th 73 pts R5
2013/14 * 1st 15 pts 4th 79 pts Won
2014/15 * 6th 10 pts 3rd 75 pts Won
2015/16 * 5th 10 pts 2nd 71 pts QF
2016/17 * 3rd 13 pts 5th 75 pts Won
2017/18 * 7th 10 pts 6th 53 pts R3
2018/19 ** 6th 12 pts 5th 70 pts R4
2019/20 *** 4th 11 pts 8th 56 pts Won
2020/21 **** 10th 9 pts

* Wenger as manager **Emery as manager *** Emery / Arteta as manager **** Arteta as manager

First, the number of points we have after six games is somewhat related to the number of points we have at the end of the season.  We had 15 points at this stage in 2013/14 and got 79 points at the end – both were our top points total for those stages of the season.

But this doesn’t relate to league position at the end of the season much of the time.  After our best first six games in the last ten years we ended up fourth in the league.  In our best league finish of the decade we had one more point than now, that’s all.

In short, to get into the top four, after six games we could have anything from nine to 15 points.  To miss out and come somewhere between 5th and 8th we could have anything from 10 to 13 points after six games.

Not surprisingly, winning the FA Cup doesn’t have anything to do with this either.  After six games we have been 3rd, 4th, 5th and 8th.

In simple terms, where we are at the moment after six games doesn’t tell us anything much about where we are doing to be by the end of the season, except that it could be anywhere between 2nd and 8th based on previous experience.

Part of the problem is that the number of points we have by the end of the season doesn’t tell us anything much about where we will end up either.  After six games we have had 10 points and ended up with anything from 53 points to 75 points.

So let’s have a look at the season when we came runners’ up and see how our first six games in the League panned out…

Date Game Res Score Competition
02 Aug 2015 Arsenal v Chelsea W 1-0 FA Community Shield
09 Aug 2015 Arsenal v West Ham United L 0-2 Premier League
16 Aug 2015 Crystal Palace v Arsenal W 1-2 Premier League
24 Aug 2015 Arsenal v Liverpool D 0-0 Premier League
29 Aug 2015 Newcastle United v Arsenal W 0-1 Premier League
12 Sep 2015 Arsenal v Stoke City W 2-0 Premier League
16 Sep 2015 Dinamo Zagreb v Arsenal L 2-1 Champions’ League
19 Sep 2015 Chelsea v Arsenal L 2-0 Premier League

We lost to Chelsea and West Ham, and beat Palace, Newcastle and Stoke, co-incidentally with this season, winning the FA Cup and then the Community Shield.

So does the past tell us nothing?  No, of course not.  It gives us all sorts of messages.  One is that changing managers is not always a pathway to success.  Another is don’t introduce too many new players at once.  And the third is to stop moaning – because moaning never helps.

Sometimes however the opening of a season does tell us something…

Here’s the top ten on 25 September 2003

Pos Team P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Arsenal 6 4 2 0 11 3 8 14
2 Chelsea 5 4 1 0 15 6 9 13
3 Manchester United 6 4 1 1 9 2 7 13
4 Southampton 6 3 3 0 8 3 5 12
5 Manchester City 6 3 2 1 14 8 6 11
6 Liverpool 6 3 2 1 9 4 5 11
7 Birmingham City 5 3 2 0 6 2 4 11
8 Portsmouth 6 2 3 1 9 5 4 9
9 Blackburn Rovers 6 2 2 2 14 12 2 8
10 Fulham 5 2 2 1 11 9 2 8

That gave us an indicator of where we were going that year.  But it is interesting that 30% of the clubs in the top ten that season are no longer in the Premier League.  Two are in the Championship and one is in League One.  So maybe it doesn’t say that much after all.

 

 

2 Replies to “Does the league table after six games tell us much about the future?”

  1. Right now in the Premier League after playing 6 matches and garnering 9 points out of the 18 points that were on offered for collection, Arsenal are currently on the average level in the table in terms of the total points collected by all clubs in the Premier League so far this season’s campaign.

    But notwithstanding this, it has to as well be observed that Arsenal have criminally been undone by the PGMO in some of their matches in the PL this season which culminated to seeing the club losing some points they would have gained in the table had the PGMO not been bias but fair in their match officiating in Arsenal games.

    But get up from where you have been fell is what Arsenal MUST do now no matter what it’ll take them to do it, they just have to do it and start marching to go forward.

    Time waits for no body, if it dosen’t made use of it will leave one behind. But there is still sufficient time left in the PL for Arsenal to makeup for the loss ground they’ve lost in the table this season irrespective of the PGMO could be there to constitute a stumbling block to them by blocking them from achieving their aims and objectives. But however, the Gunners MUST find the way around to unblock any PGMO blockage from blocking them in their efforts to collect a highly sizable points if not all the 93 points that are still left on offer to them to collect.

    Aubameyang who normally scores up tp 22 Pl goals per season for Arsenal is reported to be suffering a dip in his goal scoring form in the PL for the Gunners this season as he has not score in the last 5 consecutive PL games for Arsenal.

    But I am of the belief that is believing that Aubameyang will recover from his current dip in goal scoring form for Arsenal. And will once again start scoring goals in their numbers regularly for the club in the PL and even in all other competitions too. For, he has to for Arsenal. Which can start to happen in Arsenal PL away match tp Man Utd with the Gunners on the winning side in the match.

    There ate still 32 PL matches that are left for Arsenal to play this season where Aubameyang can still makeup for his top goal scoring loss ground in the PL for Arsenal.

  2. You can’t score goals when you have no one to create the goals for you! The problem is our style of play looks the same as last year and worryingly the manager looks bereft of ideas already – trying the same things when they do not work

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