Revealed: Exactly what sort of team wins the EPL!

By Sammy The Snake

When I listen to my heart, I am fully confident that Arsenal will go on to win lift this season’s EPL title in May, even if it’s just by a single point as it stands today.

But when I read or listen to “experts” on the subject, I get convinced that we are simply outsiders who have no place in the top 3, and that we will soon be exposed for what we truly are: Struggling for 4th. Arsenal are absolutely and categorically doomed!

This got me to think, what wins the EPL? What quality, performance and results would a team need to have in order to be crowned champions? Apart from a few helping whistles from the refs here and there, which has been elaborated sufficiently on Untold, what characteristics have previous champions possessed? I dug up the historical charts and found out.

The simplest answer is that the team with the most points wins the league. But how many points is enough? Does a team with free scoring offence wins it by default? Or does the best defence make a championship side? Let me share with you the raw historical data.

Season Winner Pts Best Offense Best Defense Best GD 1992/3 ManU 84 BlackB: 68 ManU: 31 ManU: 36 1993/4 ManU 92 Newcas: 82 Arsenal: 28 ManU: 42 1994/5 Black B 89 BlackB: 80 ManU: 28 ManU: 49 1995/6 ManU 82 ManU: 73 Arsenal: 32 ManU: 38 1996/7 ManU 75 ManU: 76 Arsenal: 32 Newcst: 33 1997/8 Arsenal 78 ManU: 73 ManU: 26 ManU: 47 1998/9 ManU 79 ManU: 80 Arsenal: 17 ManU: 43 1999/0 ManU 91 ManU: 97 Liverpool: 30 ManU: 52 2000/1 ManU 80 ManU: 79 ManU: 31 ManU: 48 2001/2 Arsenal 87 ManU: 87 Liverpool: 30 Arsenal: 43 2002/3 ManU 83 Arsenal: 85 ManU: 34 Arsenal: 43 2003/4 Arsenal 90 Arsenal: 73 Arsenal: 26 Arsenal: 47 2004/5 Chelsea 95 Arsenal: 87 Chelsea: 15 Chelsea: 57 2005/6 Chelsea 91 Chel/MU: 72 Chelsea: 22 Chelsea: 50 2006/7 ManU 89 ManU: 83 Chelsea: 24 ManU: 56 2007/8 ManU 87 ManU: 80 ManU: 22 ManU: 58 2008/9 ManU 90 Liverpl: 77 ManU: 24 Liverpl: 50 2009/0 Chelsea 86 Chelsea: 103 ManU: 28 Chelsea: 71 2010/1 ManU 80 ManU: 78 Chel/MnC: 33 ManU: 41 2011/2 ManC 89 ManC: 93 ManC: 29 ManC:64 2012/3 ManU 89 ManU: 86 ManC: 34 ManU: 43 2000/4 ? ManC: 63 Arsenl/Evet:19 ManC:38

I look at the past 21 seasons of EPL as two distinct parts. The “formative years” (first 11 seasons) were followed by what I call the “modern era” (the past 10 seasons since 2003/04). It is in the modern era that the vast amount of money started to pump into certain clubs. This is the period when untraceable money (i.e. Russian who became oligarch overnight) flowed into mid table teams and changed competition forever. Let’s not forget, the current darlings of the media were tier 2 teams not so long ago (Chelsea in late 80’s, ManCity in late 90’s as far I recollect).

In the modern era, Arsenal have been busy building and paying for their majestic stadium while money has been flowing endlessly to some clubs translating in part to some tangible success (trophies) and countless losses.

Points

In the 21 years of EPL, the average points required to be crowned champions is 86. This jumps to nearly 89 points in the modern era, which is rather surprising. I would have thought more competition would result in fewer points at the end of the season, but it’s not so.

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While Arsenal won EPL with just 78 points in 97/98, ManU have the record lowest total points with 75 points in 96/97.

In the modern era, however, 70% of seasons have been won by 89 points or more! That means it takes a lot more points these days…

In fact, in both last two years, the champion had amassed 89 points.

So it’s safe to assume one of the requirements for winning the title is to reach 89 points. Arsenal have so far 51 points from 22 games, which would translate to 88 points in total. Is that enough? Only time will tell.

If you take ManC or Chelsea points so far, and extrapolate them for 38 games, you’ll get 86 and 84.6 points respectively. But then the argument becomes “But ManC are scoring goals for fun, and they just hit 100 for the season….”.

Best offence

It must be needless to say that having a potent strike force is important for a team that wants to win the EPL, but is it essential?

I have highlighted the seasons in which the best offence was crowned champions. On 15 occasions, the champions have indeed had the best offence in the league. But not for the other 6 seasons!

In the modern era, 8 of 10 seasons were won by the best offence. On 2 occasions, the champion did not have the best goal scoring record.

I think that simply proves that while scoring a lot of goals will help, it is not the deciding factor. You can score a lot, but also concede lots too. A team might score a lot in some games, but then go out and lose the next game, which would make it pointless. Our win against Fulham could have been 6-0, but they would only allocate 3 points and no more.

So, yes, it is nice for ManC to score lots of goals, but that will not translate directly into points. The best case would be 2004/05 when Arsenal outscored everyone (87 total) but Chelsea won the league by a record (till this date) of 95 points.

Best Defence

Defence is the other school of thought about winning by defending.

In the early seasons of EPL, only 3 of 11 champions had the best defence in the league! In the modern era, the champions had the best defence 70% of the time. I can only conclude that defensive qualities are becoming more important as competition increases. This is something against the claims of the pundits who say “defensive qualities are going lower”.

The classic example of this is, of course, Chelsea and their 2004/05 season when they scored less than Arsenal but conceded only 15 throughout the season.

Arsenal’s 19 goals conceded is surely higher than Chelsea’s 04/05 record, but it is still the joint-best in the league along with Everton (who are not a title contender in my book).

So keeping a healthy defence helps a team win the title, but again, it’s not all of it. Man C, having conceded 25 already, are not helping their cause by conceding the odd goal here and there.

Best GD

So if both offence and defence are partially deciding factors, then the “Goal Difference” column must be the one major quality associated with champions. Right?

As we all know, only one team won the title by GD alone, the lucky class of 2011/12… Man City!

Throughout the years, the champions have had the best GD in 15 of the 21 seasons. The bad news is, this ratio becomes 90% in the modern era. Yes, on 9 of the past 10 seasons, the champions had the best goal difference.

But there is that one season, in 2008/09, when Liverpool had the best GD, but yet Man U lifted the trophy.

Our current GD is 24, Chelsea has 23, whereas ManC stands at 38. Can we catch up? Probably not! We’re probably better concentrating on racking up the points instead of trying to win our games by 5 goals.

Best Offence, Defence & GD

On only 6 occasions, the title winners had a perfect record of most points, the best offence, the best defence and the best GD. That’s Man U (2000/01, 2007/08, 2012/13), Arsenal (2003/04 invincibles), Chelsea (2005/06, although joint best offence with ManU) and ManCity (2011/12). This is pretty hard to do, and we can assume that it won’t be the case this season.

How about the flip side?

Can a team win the EPL without achieving any of best offence, defence or GD? The answer is no. No team in the 21 years of EPL has been able to win without any of these accolades.

The closest you can come to this is ManU in 2002/03 when they had the best defence but Arsenal had the best offence and GD. This can be a good model for the current season, but the occurrence is too few to make us feel too hopeful.

Does that mean Arsenal’s job is difficult? Yes. Is it impossible? No.

I heard someone say the league is like a marathon, you must conserve your energy for the entire length of the campaign. I sometimes wonder if ManC, fighting on 4 fronts, can continue to look like a storm for the entire season, or if they will lose their power as the season ages.

Has Man C peaked too early? Mourinho’s Chelsea are the masters in playing badly but getting good results. Can they do it despite being 3rd, without the best defence, offence or GD? Or are Arsenal conserving their energy in order to last the whole season? Only time will tell, and for now, we have nothing better to do than discuss it among us.

Win, lose or draw, Gooner till I die!

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