We are ten games into the Premier League season and another international break provides the ideal opportunity to take stock on what has been a bewildering start to another campaign.
Michael Carrick heads off for a couple of weeks with Manchester United still in the bottom three. Brighton perch second in the Premier League behind Arsenal, who are threatening to run away with it. Tottenham are only a point outside the top half, which is enough on its own to make you squint and rub your eyes. That can’t be right.
We are more than a quarter of the way through now, enough time for patterns to emerge and directions of travel to settle but also not long enough for us to be entirely sure who’s still benefitting from an early hot streak or suffering from unfair misfortune.
Who is where they belong? What can we believe? Daily Mail Sport digs into the numbers to figure out what’s real and what is fake about this Premier League season so far…
REAL: Defences CAN win you titles, just ask Arsenal
Sir Alex Ferguson was wrong, of course, when he declared that ‘attack wins you games, defence wins you titles’. Over the 31 completed 20-team Premier League seasons, fewer than half of them were won by the team that conceded the fewest goals. More than two thirds of them, however, were won by the side that scored the most.
Sometimes, as was often the case during the Pep Guardiola era, teams can be the best at both. Of the 15 times since 1995-96 that the best defence triumphed, they were also the most prolific attack on nine occasions.
Arsenal’s goals, xG, shots and shots on target are all at their lowest per game since Mikel Arteta’s first season in charge. But thanks to their defence, they are five points clear at the top
Arsenal, however, are certainly not that. Their title win last season was only the sixth time in the previous 30 years that the best defence alone was crowned champions. They are doing it again this season, five points clear and proving that the best defence can still win you a title on its own.
And it’s a good job, too, because while their defence is as rock-solid as ever, their attack is getting worse. Last season, the Gunners ranked second for goals but fourth for expected goals (xG) and shots. This term, they are sixth for goals, fifth for xG and 10th for shots.
Their goals, xG, shots and shots on target are all at their lowest per game since Arteta’s first season in charge. Their win over Hull was their fourth 1-0 victory of the campaign. Not that Arteta will care. His defence means they still have the best xG difference in the division and it’s going to win him another league title.
FAKE: Forest are relegation fodder
That euphoric 3-1 victory over Manchester City was coming. There had been a fair amount of noise building around Oliver Glasner’s start to life on the Trent as Nottingham Forest went into the weekend second from bottom in the Premier League.
One defeat in nine. Was it Glasner’s new system taking time to bed in like it did at Crystal Palace? How quickly would ‘Mr Marinakis’ lose his patience this time around and fire another head coach?
This time last year, Forest were already on to their third manager of the season. Patience, for once, will reap its rewards. Forest didn’t deserve to be 19th. They have the fifth-best expected goal difference in the division. When you dig into the numbers, Forest have the best defence of any team not named Arsenal.
Fewest shots faced, second-fewest shots on target faced after the Gunners, second lowest xG conceded after, yep, Arsenal. They have made the fewest errors leading to shots all season with just two. Bournemouth are next on five.
Their problem is they, somehow, have not been able to score. Only Sunderland – another side doing worse than their expected numbers would suggest – have underperformed their xG in front of goal more than Forest. I was at Crystal Palace for Glasner’s return to Selhurst Park and, quite simply, Forest should have been 4-0 up by half-time.
They have the lowest shot conversion rate of any side in the league at just 5.5 per cent. That’s unsustainably low. Only one team since 2014-15 has maintained one as low as that across an entire season and that was Huddersfield in 2018-19, when they finished bottom with 16 points. Forest are nowhere near that bad.
Their need for a striker has long been obvious and if Liam Delap’s brace against City can spark some confidence and form, they might have the striker they need to start climbing up the table and, who knows, into European contention.
Nottingham Forest will hope Liam Delap’s brilliant brace against Manchester City is the start of them getting past their woes in front of goal
FAKE: Spurs are back!
Listen to Jamie O’Hara on talkSPORT after a run of three wins on the trot, and he might have you believing that Spurs are back.
They are not back.
Along with another defeat, this time to Leeds, to bring Spurs hurtling to earth, their numbers simply are not good enough – and certainly not in attack – to be deemed as such.
They may have attempted the fifth-most shots in the division but in doing so have still put up the fourth-worst xG, as their xG per shot is the worst in the division. In short: they shoot a lot but hardly ever from anywhere dangerous. That 40 per cent of their goals have come from outside the box, the highest in the league, is unsustainable.
They just don’t create enough. Left back Andy Robertson has created the most chances for Spurs this season with 14. Twenty-seven players have created more than him so far, with 15 other clubs boasting at least one star higher than Tottenham’s top man. Sunderland have two above him and Arsenal, Brighton and Manchester United have three.
Tottenham have the worst xG per shot in the league – meaning they rarely get into good positions to score
REAL: Brighton (and maybe Bournemouth) are in a title race
We have got used to seeing these modest but exceptionally run clubs punching above their weight in the Premier League but even the most appreciative of us could not have expected to see at least one of them in a title race.
If, by title race, we mean the team that might get closest to Arsenal. Looking at the underlying numbers, it could even be both of them.
When you look at the expected goal difference of all clubs in the division – those you should have scored from the quality of the chances you create, against those you should have conceded from the quality of the ones you allow your opponents to create – Bournemouth and Brighton sit behind only Arsenal and Man City.
Brighton are the division’s top scorers by a distance, five more than anyone else, but even though they are outperforming their expected numbers (their players can’t keep scoring one in every 10 shots they take from outside the box – looking at you, Diego Gomez) the Seagulls are still putting up the second biggest xG behind City.
Of the 11 players to create more than 20 chances so far, Brighton are the only side to have two names in there in Pascal Gross and Maxim De Cuyper. They also, of course, beat Arsenal and City without conceding to either team.
They do need to get tighter at the back if they wish to stay near the top, mind. Brighton should have conceded about seven more goals than they have done. No side has overperformed their defensive data quite so much.
Bournemouth are the ones who should be doing better, which sounds mad for a team that’s just won eight games on the bounce in less than a month in all competitions. The Cherries sit seventh but have the third-best xG, and the third-best xG conceded. That, no matter how you look at it, is a recipe for prolonged success.
Brighton’s Diego Gomez can’t continue scoring every shot he has from long range… can he?
Bournemouth are the ones who should be doing better, which sounds mad for a team that’s just won eight games on the bounce in less than a month
FAKE: Chelsea are European contenders
Speaking of overperforming, few teams are doing quite so well to hide their abundant flaws as Chelsea. Xabi Alonso’s side sit fifth in the Premier League and the Spaniard can be thankful to the football gods for it. They should not be fifth.
Chelsea sit in the bottom half for both xG for and against. Their expected goal difference puts them in 14th, below Fulham, Manchester United and Sunderland.
Only Brighton have scored more goals than they should have done based on their chances but, unlike the Seagulls, Chelsea’s baseline is far more mediocre. Opta’s expected points table has them 12th.
They are also one of only two sides in the division this season not to have had a single goal scored by a substitute.
Chelsea’s expected goal difference puts them in 14th, below Fulham, Manchester United and Sunderland
REAL: Newcastle are in trouble
When you lose a manager as influential as Eddie Howe, it’s always going to be a tricky transition. When you sell Sandro Tonali, Bruno Guimaraes and Anthony Gordon and struggle to replace them adequately, it’s going to be harder still.
Still, Newcastle should be doing better. They should not be creating better chances than only Hull and Coventry. Their expected goal difference is only better than Coventry, Ipswich and Palace. Opta’s expected table has them just outside the relegation zone.
Only three teams have faced more shots, only three have attempted more shots on target, only five have played fewer passes into the box.
Daily Mail Sport revealed last week that Newcastle’s players are ‘confused’ by new manager Matthias Jaissle’s instructions, playing style and strategy. Jaissle accused his team after the defeat to Everton of not following his instructions or executing the tactics they had worked on in training.
They have to find a way of getting it to click after the international break otherwise they will be fighting out most of their season closer to that dotted line.
FAKE? United are for the drop
It can often be fun for supporters of other clubs around the country to revel in the pain and misery that Manchester United appear intent on inflicting on their own supporters.
Even the carnage and chaos of coming from two goals down against Aston Villa and the shot of joy that can bring was still only enough to leave United 18th in the table.
Do they deserve to be there? With just one win all season, the fewest in the league, you would think so. United have, perhaps, not quite been that bad – but they certainly don’t help themselves.
Everyone talks about them having tons of shots, which they do. They have had the most in the division by a distance, which always keeps the xG totting up, but so many of them come from miles away. United, too often, take the scattergun approach.
Manchester United have been suffering from bad luck at the back – but will it correct itself in time to save them from a relegation battle?
Their xG per shot is the lowest in the division, meaning their shots aren’t from dangerous positions, and their conversion rate is one of the worst, too. When 45 per cent of your attempts on goal come from outside the box, that’s likely to happen. That makes their midtable expected goal difference slightly misleading.
Their main problem is at the back – and that is where they are being consistently punished. It is the opposite story to their attack.
United have faced among the fewest shots in the division but among the most on target. Their xG per shot faced is the highest in the league, and their opponents enjoy a higher conversion rate than against any other team.
That, though, is unlikely to remain sustainable. They are unlikely to keep getting punished quite so harshly. That should be enough to drag them clear – but only just.
