The Merits of the Title Races Around Europe
Part 1, Episode 1: England
The accepted general convention with league tables is that the first few weeks of a new league season is a pointless time to see where every team stands. It’s not until 10 or so games that we can start to understand who is good, who is not and who has work to do.
It’s not a perfect sample size, but after this many games each team should have played a mix of fixtures from the various depths of the table.
It’s also at this point that it becomes obvious to gauge the validity of the title races across Europe’s top leagues.
Already, in France, the title race doesn’t appear to be up to much. Paris Saint-Germain lead by eight points from 12 games. Mauricio Pochettino’s side look comfortable and there surely won’t be quite the fight we saw last season.
The Bundesliga is quite close after 10 games. Bayern Munich do lead with 25 points, but Borussia Dortmund are breathing down their necks on 24. Freiburg are the big surprise in third, on 22 points.
But, tellingly, the xG/D table has Bayern way out in front. Frankly, it won’t be until Dortmund earn a significant points advantage that most onlookers will really believe a title race exists in Germany — fool me once, etc. etc.
However, it’s in Spain, Italy and England that the title races appear to be wide open. That’s what this series will look at during this stage of the season.
If something develops in France and Germany then by all means they can be touched on again, but the real action is in the Premier League, Serie A and La Liga.
This will be the start of a new series looking at the title races in those three divisions. Starting today with England, I will also look at Italy and Spain in the coming weeks.
This series will then pick back up again around the New Year and will culminate in March/April time as we get into the meat of the action.
In the Premier League, there are three clear favourites for the championship. Chelsea lead Liverpool and Manchester City.
Chelsea’s xG/D isn’t quite as good as their rivals, but a big factor in that is still due to playing 45 minutes with 10 men at Anfield. Liverpool and City have an impressive xG/D per 90 of +1.5 and +1.45 respectively, whereas Chelsea’s is +0.66.
Interestingly, West Ham are the clear fourth best side on this table, with an xG/D per 90 of +0.65.
But in pure points terms, Chelsea lead Liverpool by three points and City by five. Chelsea’s worst performances came against Brentford, Aston Villa and City.
Last season the Blues under Thomas Tuchel were incredibly defensively sound. They offered up very few chances per game.
From Tuchel’s first game onwards, they only conceded more than 1xG during a game on three occasions.
One was when down to 10-men against West Brom, another against Man City and the final one came against Villa when their minds were set on the upcoming Champions League final.
This season they have already given up more than 1xG on five occasions. Yet, they have only conceded three goals all season and have to concede from open play.
This is a team who are probably due to ship a few more goals eventually given that they have an xG against of 10.5 for only three conceded. However, the performances of Edouard Mendy have been superb, in particular against Brentford.
It will be interesting to see how the team performs when Mendy leaves for AFCON in January. Kepa Arrizabalaga has never been nearly as convincing in goals as Mendy has been.
Liverpool will also be hit hard by AFCON, with some players expected to miss up to eight club games while away. Liverpool will be missing Sadio Mané and Mo Salah, two crucial players, as well as Naby Keita.
But Liverpool are playing superbly for the time being and Salah has earned the right for his name to be in the conversation for best in the world.
Nobody can match their 29 league goals from the opening 10 games. Their xG is 26.3, so it’s not like they are massively overperforming either.
Man City have had the most surprising results, the recent 2–0 loss to Crystal Palace a prime example. However, they have the greatest propensity to absolutely blow teams away.
On six occasions, in all competitions, City have scored 4+ goals in a game, but they’ve been held to no score five times also.
This ability to run hot and cold doesn’t lend itself well to a league campaign. Although, as evidenced by last season, Pep Guardiola’s side do always have the potential to go on a long winning streak once everything clicks.
West Ham’s form has been incredible under David Moyes, but it is unlikely that they will be able to maintain anything like the aforementioned sides.
Now that Tottenham have appointed Antonio Conte they must be in the conversation for the Champions League places.
And, given the talent at Manchester United’s disposal, anything but top four should be seen as a massive failure by the club.
Leicester City haven’t performed to the same standards as last season, but Brendan Rodgers is also managing a side that is transitioning away from some older heads, like Jamie Vardy, to new names that the club can be built around.
The Foxes have also been hit hard from injury during the opening weeks, which has made integrating new players more difficult.
Finally, Arsenal started the season quite poorly, but their recent results suggest that Mikel Arteta has steered the club clear from any true crisis.
Their xG/D per 90 is still one of the poorest in the league, but they have had a tougher fixture schedule than most and their most recent performances have seen an uptick in form, as well as results.
Not only do we have an open title race in the Premier League — potentially the first between more than two sides since 2013/14 — but that final Champions League place is still up for grabs given the underwhelming performances of Man United compared to pre-season expectations.
It may still only be 10 games into the season, but all indications are that it could be a classic year for the Premier League.
All stats courtesy of StatsBomb via Fbref.
