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As it stands on 10th April 2015, Chelsea leads Arsenal by 7 points, City leads Liverpool by 7 points and Southampton leads Swansea by 7 points in English Premier League 2014-15.
Arsenal, United and City are separated by 1 point each. Liverpool, Tottenham and Southampton are within one point difference. Is the 7-point barrier good enough to keep these three groups apart till the end of the season? What does Premier League’s recent history shows us? This analysis is limited to last 5 seasons and top 7 ranked teams of each season.
Top 7 after 31 games always finish the season within top 7
The top 7 teams at the end of 31 games finished within top 7 at the end of the season too. Hence and with the 7 point lead by Southampton over Swansea, we could expect Chelsea, Arsenal, United, City, Liverpool, Tottenham and Southampton to finish in top 7. Only 2 teams have lost a lead of more than a point. Let’s have a look at them.
2011-12 – United loses title to City: There are not many chases that might come to close to City winning title away from United’s lead at the dying moments of the last game of the season. Red devils were 5 points ahead of Citizens just 7 games before. But at the last moment, City leveled United and won the title with a higher goal difference. That, I think is probably the worst moment ever for Sir Alex Ferguson.
2010-11 – Arsenal loses 6 point lead and 2 position in 7 games: Probably Arsenal are the team which fluctuates a lot in the league table. Form fluctuation is inevitable. But towards the finish line they lost to Chelsea and Manchester City by winning just 2 games after February. In fact, they have lost a 6 point lead to City and trailed by 3 points at the end. Even if City were 8 points lower, Arsenal would have still finished lower. A coincidence here is that poor form towards the end of the season is also an attribute of their then captain Cesc Fàbregas.
The other 3 season tables are also listed below. Do look at it and give your thoughts around the finishing steadiness of teams.
This article has been contributed by a member of the SK Featured Bloggers Club. It was originally published on the ‘Stat Screamer’ blog here
