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The teams seem to be fighting for more than laurels in the English Premier League. We have just crossed the midway of EPL 2013-2014 but unlike any other season in last few years, we do not know which teams will make the top 4 and which teams will be relegated. The January window is also open for more transfers. We have had lots of match day analysis at our disposal, an entire list of excuses for perform dips, the usual exceptional players and several surprise packages.
Wondering what has changed in the overall performance of the 17 teams (excluding the relegated clubs) in EPL, I thought about how I could compare them in a simple and civil manner, easy to comprehend for both the football fanatics and millions of new fans of EPL. I looked at the ranking table for this and the previous season after 20 matches.
I made a list of the 17 clubs which played in EPL last year as well, and compared their rankings and number of points gathered at the end of 20 weeks last year to this year.
Source: premierleague.com
It is pretty clear that there was more competition in the middle of the table last year. This year, however, the teams want nothing more than the top 4 finish. To achieve this, different teams have adopted different methods.
So which teams have been more successful? Who have improved their league standing? Which teams have gathered more points? Has more points really helped improve a team’s standing? The following analysis might answer such questions.
Change in Position in the Rankings table
Change in number of points
Overall Performance
The following table and curve describes the trend between change in points leading to the change in position.
As can be seen, if the teams in the middle of the table improve only as much as the teams above them, their position will not change. They will need to defy the present trend (change in position per change in points) to be able to reach the top 4. Not many teams in the past have performed beyond expectations to disprove this relation (of course Arsenal has) and hence, it will take a lot of muscle for the highlighted teams to climb the table.
Trendline
CONCLUSION
The table will change drastically but it will mostly involve a reshuffle in the top 7 or in the last 7. The teams in the table will need to beat all odds (which they probably won’t be able to considering their team compositions) to move up or climb down. For instance, Man United will need to do a City or Arsenal to climb up and Swansea will need to do a Sunderland to enter the royal relegation zone. This is where the importance of January window is realized because managers will be able to strengthen their squads to win or draw more matches. Also, it is clear from above that the managers definitely know how many points they need to earn hereon to be in the top, middle or at the bottom of the table. Moreover, they surely know that it is not just about more wins, but also about more draws. Jose surely knows this and if the other managers don’t, they can contact him or me. Ofcourse, I will charge very less compared to ‘The Special One’.
