Spurs to fall and burn as Chelsea resurrects
A look at which Premier League teams should improve in the second half of the season—and which will struggle if the numbers are true.
We’re well over halfway through the 2023–24 Premier League season, and we know, or believe we know, who the runners and riders are, the contenders and the relegation scrappers, the good, the poor, and the downright indifferent. But do the numbers agree?
Is Liverpool actually the greatest team in the Premier League thus far? Is the bottom three of Sheffield United, Burnley, and Luton Town the weakest group of teams? Across the league, clubs are riding their luck or receiving far fewer points than they deserve, at least according to xG and related analytics.
Of course, statistics only tell half the story, and if a team, for example, is scoring far fewer goals than they are “meant to,” this frequently signals a problem, such as poor attackers. A club that outperforms by raw numbers may be unlucky, but they might also be very, really strong at finishing or have a goalie who can save more shots than others.
So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at how the analytics predict the rest of the season will unfold, and we’ll make sure to apply the necessary context and cautions along the way.
The championship race
Liverpool’s league position is not by chance; they have the greatest anticipated goal differential in the league, and their 43 goals have come at an xG of 44.1, implying that they have been a touch unlucky or wasteful in front of goal. To be honest, the tiny difference may simply be the tax you pay for occasionally playing Darwin ‘Barn Door’ Nez up front.
They have surrendered 4.6 goals fewer than the analytics suggest they should have done on average, but that’s what having Alisson in net does for a squad. The Brazilian appears to be worth approximately three goals avoided on his own compared to the shots he’s faced, which accounts for the majority of the disparity. This is a legitimate title challenge, and there’s no reason to believe they won’t be there or thereabouts by the end of the season.
If the game were scored entirely on statistical output, there would be only two contenders for the coveted top spot: Arsenal and Manchester City. They have a projected goal differential of 20.0 and 18.9, which is somewhat lower than Liverpool but far ahead of anybody else in the league.
They also boast the two tightest defenses in the Premier League. By the time we reach home straight, this is highly likely to be a three-horse race based only on the stats.
The race for the top four
So, how about second-placed Aston Villa? While they’re a long way behind the three best teams and are overperforming their xG by a fair margin (43 goals to 36 expected, mostly due to Leon Bailey and John McGinn), they still look like very serious top four contenders, and there’s only one other team who can claim to have been better: Chelsea.
Chelsea, you are correct. Seriously. Their defense hasn’t been as excellent as Villa’s, either on paper or in practice, but whereas the Villans have been finishing every opportunity they get, Mauricio Pochettino’s men have significantly undershot their xG. Their anticipated goals of 39.4 are the second best in the league, but they only have 35 in reality, with the most of the difference due to the unlucky Nicolas Jackson, who is still adjusting in England and should have approximately three goals more than he really has.
They’ve put in the fourth-best performances in the country on average. Pochettino may have done a better job than appears at first glance. Still, they’re eleventh and won’t be able to make up ground unless they’re really lucky.
Of course, we haven’t mentioned Spurs yet, who are fifth and just one point below the top four, and that’s because they’ve been statistically the single ‘luckiest’ club in the league. Their statistics indicate that they should be in mid-table with a goal difference of zero, yet they’ve scored seven goals more than an average club would with their opportunities and surrendered roughly six fewer.
That implies that maybe Ange Postecoglou has had some good fortune so far, but it is also a ringing endorsement of Son Heung-Min and Guglielmo Vicario, who have been brilliant. It’s also worth noting that their numbers have suffered from a marked decline since the 4-1 defeat to Chelsea in November, roughly when their injury crisis began. That probably isn’t a coincidence.
According to the statistics, Manchester United will not finish in the top four, and they are not even in the top half as a team. In a more mathematically ideal world, they would be roughly in the bottom half. Newcastle United are an odd case in that they are slightly outperforming the numbers that suggest they should be seventh in the table but are actually lower down due to the teams above them that have either gotten lucky or simply done better with their chances, depending on how you interpret things.
Their results were also greatly skewed by the recent statistical tonking they received at Anfield, so once the sample size is increased again, they’ll probably appear better than they do now. Brighton & Hove Albion are precisely where they should be, from table position to goal differential, and are now the favorite team of all statisticians who wish everything was as tidy as it seems.
The struggle for relegation
Sheffield United, Burnley, and Luton Town have fared much poorer than any other side in the league, according to the raw statistics available. When it comes to the drop zone, the table simply does not lie, and any of them will need to make a big turnaround to escape an immediate return to the championship.
They are all well behind the pace in the Premier League, both in attack and defense, and while Luton Town appear to be fighting hard, the numbers show that they are the 18th-best team and a long way behind the next worst, Fulham, who are closely followed by Nottingham Forest and… West Ham United!
Yes, West Ham, who are presently in the Europa League, are a statistical anomaly. They’ve scored more goals with their opportunities than the average squad and surrendered five less. Some of that is due to their amazing start to the season, when they momentarily made a joke of the entire notion of xG, and some is due to a couple of really talented players, such as Jarrod Bowen and Alphonse Aréola.
However, most clubs tend to regress to the mean over the course of a lengthy season, which implies that West Ham will most certainly fall out of the European spots before long unless they improve.
Let’s speak about Brentford, a team that is now defying all of the facts. A winless streak of eight games has them hanging barely above the relegation zone, but the mathematics indicate that they should be alright. In reality, they’ve been the sixth-best team in terms of generating and stopping opportunities this season, and in a more equitable universe, they’d have more points than Newcastle or Brighton.
Everton, on the other hand, has the stats of a decent mid-table squad, and it’s only that pesky ten-point deduction that makes things appear dismal. Given that they are currently in front of Luton, we believe they will be OK.
That leaves just three mid-table clubs we haven’t addressed, so for the sake of completeness, we should state that the numbers are completely content with Crystal Palace, Wolverhampton Wanderers, and Bournemouth’s current positions.
The statistics suggest that the present position should be reversed, with Wolves being the weakest and Bournemouth being the strongest, but the differences aren’t particularly significant. They are doing about as well as they deserve.
So, based on the statistics, Spurs and Villa will fall away, Chelsea will climb the table, West Ham could be dragged down into the bottom half, and Brentford will launch a late surge for the European places, at least if every team gets what they deserve and continues to play as well as they are. Which, I believe we can all agree, will not occur uniformly.
So, is all of this for naught? Perhaps a bit, but it can provide us with some strong clues as to how the remainder of the campaign will likely unfold, as well as some great ammo for discussions in the bar. What could be more valuable than that?
