Nine games into a season, eight for City, but nine for most is a good point to take stock and see what trends are possible to detect. As such I was taking a look at the league table. There are a couple of truisms that I've found to be useful especially relatively early in the season.
The first is that usually a point a game will see a team safe. So the bottom five of Wolves, Birmingham, Hull, West Ham and Portsmouth would be the ones that I would look at. Bolton may be awful, but 8 points from 8 games should be enough of a pace to stay up.
The second truism is that goal difference is quite often a very good indicator of a team's true potential for the long run in a season. Take the current table. If you reorder it based on goal difference rather than points the table changes and you get the following...
1. Arsenal +16
2. Man Utd +12
3. Chelsea +11
4. Liverpool +9
5. Tottenham +8
6. Manchester City +7
7. Aston Villa +5
8. Sunderland +4
These top 8 teams are the only clubs with a positive goal difference and to me makes interesting reading. The most obvious is that Liverpool's current position is artificially low in 8th place. Second is that Arsenal, somehow under the radar in 4th after a couple of defeats, may be better than advertised. Particularly so in that Arshavin didn't play in one of their defeats against City.
Moving to the rest of the table and that 6 goal difference between 8th and 9th is unusual for this time of year.
9. Bolton -2
10. Everton -2
11. Fulham -2
12. Stoke City -3
13. West Ham -4
14. Birmingham -5
15. Blackburn -6
16. Wigan -7
17. Wolves -7
18. Burnley -10
19. Portsmouth -10
20. Hull -14
Similarly to the top 8 there are some immediate observations. Notice how West Ham move significantly up the table from their current second bottom while Burnley head in the opposite direction into the relegation zone.
The implication here is that literally West Ham is much better than their results in the first 8 games while Burnley is a great early season story, particularly the victory over Manchester United, but the long term survival of the club is a lot more perilous than their current 10th place position might indicate.
This doesn't work every year, in fact City's goal difference last year indicated that it should have finished higher than it did. But as a broad stroke it is a good indicator which team are due a reversal in fortune and form.
Comments
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Posted by Pat McGibbon on 10/21/2009
Very impressive if it holds true. I'm guessing you've tested this kind of analysis against previous seasons - has it been the case that GD at this point of the season has a corrlation to final positions?
Wallace Reply No. What happens usually is that the clubs that have the unusual goal difference, either positive or negative, in relation to their current position start to move in the appropriate direction over the course of the season. It's more an indicator as to who is out of position within the table and the movement we should start to see over the coming weeks.
It's a broad stroke indicator rather than a pinpoint but is surprisingly informative. Last year I think a lot of City fans had the feeling that the club under performed. Based on goal difference the club "should" have finished 6th rather than 10th an indicator to me that our instincts about the club under achieving are correct.
Similarly Newcastle fans can feel a little hard done by as from a goal difference standpoint Hull should have gone down not them. But more power to Hull, they performed well at the start of the year and then rode their luck.
Lastly Liverpool had the best goal difference in the Premier League confirming what a lot of neutrals have suspected which is Rafa blew it big time.
Like I said, it's not perfect, but it's a useful tool.
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Posted by Gus 4 weeks ago
I completely agree with your assessment. I am glad to know that there are other people in the world with keen observation skills. I noticed this trend some years ago, and always relied on it as an indicator as to how the league table might shape up come the end of the season
Posted by Noah Wexler 3 weeks, 4 days ago
One thing to consider is that City has yet to truly thrash a weaker opponent, which I expect them to do at some point. There will be a game in coming weeks were a goal or two goes in early and the faucet just starts flowing. I see City having a 5 goal game at some point. Hope it comes soon.
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Wallace Poulter is an award winning video game producer, designer, industry consultant and writer. He has been a football fanatic since the day he moved in next door to Brian Clough. "Cloughie" being the acknowledged genius that he was promptly moved out and went to manage Derby. A serviceable senior school left-back in his youth, Poulter played one season of Sunday league football as a striker proving conclusively that he was a serviceable senior school left-back! Today Poulter remains involved with football as a licensed referee and most recently as a consultant on a Football MMO.