Forget Brexit. Now Chelsea and Liverpool are first and second in the Premier League we should start discussing Chexit and Lexit. This weekend I asked an executive from a leading Premier League club whether Chelsea and Liverpool had an advantage by not being in Europe this season. Of course they have, he replied. The only question is, how much?

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His argument was simple. While their rivals would be busy hopping on and off the Champions League travelator between six and 13 times this season, Chelsea and Liverpool would be using that time to rest, train and plot the downfall of future opponents. And with Antonio Conte and Jürgen Klopp pushing their players physically and tactically, the effects would inevitably seep through to the league table.

As he put it: “Think of all the extra hours they will have on the training pitch. Perhaps if someone, who didn’t spend as much time preparing was in charge, it wouldn’t be such an advantage. But for training-ground-based guys, less games equals more training which in theory should lead to better results.”

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Other advantages are already apparent. Stats.com data shows Chelsea (16) and Liverpool (17) have used the fewest players in their starting XIs among the top seven teams in the Premier League this season. Even in the era of the squad, this matters: a major reason for Leicester’s success last season was they used fewer players than anyone else in the league; being able to recover more and rotate less than their rivals, coupled with fewer injuries and suspensions, was also a big advantage down the stretch.

It will help, too, that Chelsea’s and Liverpool’s best players are typically spending less time on the pitch than those of Manchester City, Spurs and Arsenal. Eden Hazard, for instance, has played 1,079 minutes for his club in 2016‑17 while Philippe Coutinho has 996. Alexis Sánchez has racked up 1,342 minutes for Arsenal already, with Mesut Özil not far behind.

Analysis by Omar Chaudhuri, the head of football intelligence for 21st Club, a consultancy that works with several leading clubs, suggests key players for teams in Europe will likely accumulate nearly 20% more minutes than key players for teams not in the Champions League or Europa League. “This is the equivalent of over seven matches a season,” he says.

I wondered whether a team’s physical level may also drop after playing back-to-back matches in the Champions League and Premier League. Data from Tracab, the optical tracking system, suggests not. Arsenal, Manchester City, Spurs and Leicester have averaged 113 sprints (any effort by a player over seven metres per second or 25.2kph) in Premier League games after a Champions League fixture this season, compared to 117 in matches after not playing in Europe. Four extra sprints per team, per match is nothing. Still, it would be fascinating to look at a wider sample size and also examine players’ cortisol and testosterone levels to assess whether extra minutes may lead to a drop in performance in the spring.

Yet using different metrics – particularly chances created and conceded – leads Chaudhuri to suggest the advantage Liverpool and Chelsea may get by not playing in the Champions League could be as big as six points. He works this out by looking at how the big six teams competing in Europe have performed in Premier League matches after a midweek European match since the start of the 2014‑15 season, adjusting for the difficulty of matches.

He says the effect – albeit from a small sample – has been more pronounced this season, perhaps owing to the increased competitive balance in the division.

“It’s not straightforward to turn this into a points value, because it will depend on how far a team goes, how much they rotate in each competition and so on. But we estimate the cost of playing in Europe can be as much as six points to a team over a season; and even if the typical effect is smaller for most teams it is certainly non-negligible when the league is so tight.”

Whether you fully buy his analysis or not, the absence of European competition has already made a huge difference to Chelsea’s fortunes. After they were thumped 3-0 by Arsenal in late September, the odds of Conte becoming the next Premier League manager to be sacked nosedived. But while the Gunners immediately had to prepare to face Basel, Conte had a week to work on a switch to 3‑4‑2‑1 which rapidly altered the trajectory of his side’s season.

And after last weekend’s results the Premier League has become corset‑tight, with only four points separating Chelsea from fifth‑placed Spurs. As Simon Gleave, head of analysis at Gracenote Sports, points out, not since the 1997-98 season, when Manchester United, Arsenal, Blackburn, Leicester and Chelsea were covered by three points, has it been so close after 12 games.

The likely advantages Chelsea and Liverpool have in the months ahead do not necessarily mean they will lift the title – Manchester City, in particular, are formidable opponents. And it does not mean that Chexit or Lexit is a good long-term strategy. But after Liverpool in 2013-14 and then Leicester emphasised the benefits of missing out on Europe, do not be surprised if Conte or Klopp’s men ram them home.