Leicester, Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester City may well have been joined by Manchester United and West Ham in the title race after an incredible midweek. We rank the teams in six categories in an attempt to predict the winner

On Tuesday night the Leicester City manager, Claudio Ranieri, bemoaned the fact that his side had not managed to break down West Bromwich Albion at home to pull six points clear of the chasing pack. It felt a little bit like a defeat. Twenty-four hours later, however, the point garnered at the King Power Stadium looked like a small victory with Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester City folding like a pack of cards in their respective games, failing to pick up a point between them.

Victories for Manchester United and West Ham United have even given each hope of unlikely success come May. So with 10 games to go (11 for Manchester City) we attempt the impossible: to predict who will win this season’s Premier League.

We have ranked the teams in six categories with the most important category (points accrued) worth twice as much as the others.

Current Premier League table

1 Leicester 57pts

2 Tottenham 54

3 Arsenal 51

4 Manchester City 47 (one game in hand)

5 Manchester United 47

6 West Ham United 46

Form

The past six games (in all competitions)seems a fair time span on which to judge a team’s form and three of the sides (Leicester, Manchester United and West Ham United) have won four of those fixtures.

The form of Arsenal and Manchester City is the most troubling. Manuel Pellegrini’s team, in the Premier League, have lost their past three games (conceding eight goals in the process) while Arsène Wenger has suffered three consecutive defeats in all competitions with the home loss against Swansea City unexpected and particularly painful.

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Spurs are difficult to judge as their league form can be considered good, but throw in the FA Cup defeat at home against Crystal Palace and that leaves them with two wins in the past five games.

Who would have thought, a few weeks ago, that Manchester United would be one of the form teams in the country? But the emergence of Marcus Rashford has coincided with four wins in four games. West Ham have lost only once in their past six games.

1 Leicester 9/10

2 Manchester United 8/10

2 West Ham United 8/10

4 Tottenham 6/10

5 Manchester City 4/10

6 Arsenal 3/10

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Leicester City have won four of their past six games with Leonardo Ulloa scoring the winner against Norwich City last Saturday. Photograph: Michael Regan/Getty Images

Confidence

It was astonishing to see Arsenal look so bereft of confidence against a weakened Swansea City at the Emirates on Wednesday night. Here, after all, is a team full of international players, guided by a very experienced manager, and who could have closed the gap to top-of-the table Leicester to three points. And instead they completely seized up. For Arsenal and their fans it was extremely worrying and it is difficult to see how they recover from this.

Perhaps the psychological blow of the chastening defeat at Old Trafford took a bigger toll than we initially thought.

Tottenham’s collective failure at West Ham was also troubling from their point of view. Had they won at Upton Park, or drawn, they would have gone into Saturday’s north London derby extremely high on confidence but, as it is, they will feel a certain amount of anxiety too.

United and West Ham are on similar runs and can feel pretty happy about themselves but are not as confident away from home as they are at home and that will have to change if they are to make ground on the top teams.

1 Leicester 8/10

2 West Ham United 7/10

3 Manchester United 7/10

4 Tottenham 6/10

5 Manchester City 5/10

6 Arsenal 3/10

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Arsenal’s Petr Cech smiles ruefully during the defeat at home against Swansea City. Photograph: TGSPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock

Squad depth/injuries

A look at the teams’ substitute benches is normally a good indicator of where they are in terms of strength in depth at this point of the season and the midweek lineups make for interesting reading.

Manchester United’s injury problems are well known and the players on their bench for the Watford game on Wednesday had, between the seven of them, 50 Premier League appearances before the match. The players were Sergio Romero (four appearances before Wednesday night), Matteo Darmian (21), Paddy McNair (24), Joe Rothwell (0), Joe Riley (0) and James Weir (1).

That may not sound like a perfect recipe for a belated title push but the fact that the youngsters have come in to give the team a lift, coupled with the fact that United have experienced players to come back in the not too distant future, means that they are not in the worst place compared with the other five teams.

Arsenal, perhaps unremarkably considering that Mohamed Elneny was the first outfield player Wenger had signed in 350 days, look to be a few players light of what would be desirable at this stage of the season but a lot of that is down to injuries. Santi Cazorla has been sorely missed and although they did have experienced international players such as Theo Walcott, Danny Welbeck, Mathieu Flamini and David Ospina on the bench against Swansea they are not in the best form.

Manchester City, too, have been hit by a lot of injuries, but it is remarkable, considering their wealth, that they are in the beginning of March with a manager bemoaning fatigue and lack of options. Pellegrini fielded a weakened team in the FA Cup at Chelsea and was vindicated with the Champions League win in Kiev a few days later but his first-team players folded abjectly at Anfield on Wednesday and if Sergio Agüero is not scoring, they have problems up front.

Leicester have suffered few injuries so far, although N’Golo Kanté is out at the moment. Claudio Ranieri has 10 players in his squad who have played more than 20 Premier League games this season and if Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy stay fit the squad situation looks good for the Foxes.

Spurs are in a similar situation with a very settled team but reliant on a few key players, such as Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen. Mousa Dembélé’s expected absence from the north London derby is a blow and even though they have coped well so far, being without Jan Vertonghen for so long could have an impact on their chances.

West Ham have coped extremely well with injury setbacks. Who would have thought they would be a point off a Champions League place in March when Dimitri Payet – probably the signing of the season – was ruled out for three months in November? When someone who has not played for most of the season – step forward Michail Antonio – comes in and scores four goals in seven games then the omens are good.

1 Leicester 8/10

2 West Ham United 7/10

3 Tottenham 6/10

3 Manchester City 6/10

5 Manchester United 5/10

5 Arsenal 5/10

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Michail Antonio has played a big part in West Ham sustaining their challenge for a European place and, possibly, a tilt at the title. Photograph: Arfa Griffiths/West Ham United via Getty Images

Remaining fixtures/other competitions

The first thing to consider is which other competitions the teams are involved in and which could have a huge impact on the title run-in. The Europa League can have a debilitating effect on any Premier League team, never mind one in the title race, and Manchester United and Tottenham have huge ties coming up in the competition, against Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund respectively. Spurs have an advantage over United in that they are out of the FA Cup and can play their league game against a charitable Aston Villa side on the weekend of 12/13 March (between the Dortmund games) whereas United have a Cup game against West Ham that weekend, their league game against Crystal Palace having been postponed.

Arsenal are likely to go out to Barcelona in the Champions League but are still in the FA Cup with a fifth-round replay against Hull City to come on Tuesday, three days after the north London derby. Manchester City should progress in the Champions League and are very likely to prioritise that competition ahead of the league, which they have won twice in the past four years.

As for the league fixtures, it is probably fair to say that Leicester, who can focus solely on the league, appear (on paper) to have the easiest run-in, with Manchester United away on 1 May and West Ham at home on 17 April their only games against the other teams in the current top six.

Arsenal and Spurs, after this weekend’s derby, also have manageable fixtures coming up, although Mauricio Pochettino’s final four away games are against Liverpool, Stoke, Chelsea and a Newcastle side who could well be fighting to stay up on the last day of the season and have a decent home record.

City will be heartened by the fact that their most difficult games, again on paper, are at home, against Manchester United on 20 March and Arsenal on 7 May, but they still have to travel to a revitalised Chelsea and a difficult Southampton side.

West Ham still have to play Manchester United, Arsenal and Leicester, while United face tricky away games against City, Spurs and West Ham.

1 Leicester 8/10

2 Arsenal 7/10

3 Tottenham 6/10

3 Manchester City 6/10

5 West Ham United 4/10

5 Manchester United 4/10

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham have some tough away games remaining. Photograph: Ian Kington/AFP/Getty Images

Title-winning experience

Manchester City are the standout side here, having won the league in 2011-12 and 2013-14. The core of the team is still at the club, with players such as Joe Hart, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Touré, David Silva and Sergio Agüero having been there for both triumphs.

Arsenal added plenty of experience with the Petr Cech signing in the summer, the Czech having won 12 major trophies during his time at Chelsea, four of them the league. Alexis Sánchez won the league with Barcelona, as did Mesut Özil with Real Madrid, and, although it is easy to forget because it was such a long time ago, Wenger has won the league three times during his time at the club. Welbeck has won a Premier League too, at Manchester United.

Spurs and West Ham are not inundated with experienced title-winners although Christian Eriksen, for example, won three consecutive league titles with Ajax before moving to north London. West Ham have a surprising amount of title winners in their squad, notably in Alex Song, a La Liga winner, and Angelo Ogbonna, who twice finished top of Serie A with Juventus.

For Leicester, however, title triumphs are few and far between. Ranieri, as José Mourinho always liked to point out (before this season at least), has often finished in second place and the majority his players have not played for big enough clubs to be challenging for major titles, although Robert Huth has two winners’ medals from Chelsea. Danny Simpson and Danny Drinkwater, of course, have experienced the mentality of a title-winning club, having spent several years at Manchester United, but they were not involved in a tense run-in as players.

Van Gaal has a wealth of experience and has won league titles in three countries with four different clubs, although it is six years now since he tasted success, with Bayern in 2010. United have several players, such as David de Gea, Phil Jones, Antonio Valencia, Chris Smalling, Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick and Ashley Young, who won the title in 2013 and they also signed Bastian Schweinsteiger – winner of an impressive eight Bundesliga titles with Bayern – last summer.

1 Manchester United 9/10

2 Manchester City 8/10

3 Arsenal 5/10

4 Tottenham 3/10

4 West Ham United 3/10

6 Leicester 1/10

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Manuel Pellegrini, left, and Yaya Touré celebrate Manchester City winning the league in 2014. Photograph: Xinhua/Landov/Barcroft Media

Points in the bag

And, finally, the most important one. Points, not confidence or previous titles, win you the league so it seems only fair to distribute 20 points for this category. West Ham are 11 points adrift of the leaders with 10 games to go and it seems extremely unlikely, although not impossible, that they can make up that ground. Even if Leicester get terribly nervous and go into a complete meltdown, the Hammers also have to make up eight points on Spurs, five on Arsenal and so on.

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Leicester have a three-point gap and, although that could be wiped out by Saturday night, it gives them a big advantage. Arsenal, only six points behind despite the sense of doom engulfing the club, cannot be ruled out and neither, of course, can Tottenham.

City have a game in hand and although there are no guarantees they will beat Newcastle away on current form, that gives them a slight advantage over United and West Ham.

1 Leicester 20/20

2 Tottenham 15/20

3 Arsenal 10/20

4 Manchester City 5/20

5 Manchester United 4/20

6 West Ham United 3/20

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Juan Mata, left, and his Manchester United team-mate Memphis Depay are 10 points behind the league leaders Leicester City Photograph: Magi Haroun/Rex/Shutterstock

Total points and verdict

So, according to our wholly unscientific approach, these are the final scores for the six contenders.

1 Leicester City 54pts

2 Tottenham 42

3 Manchester United 37

4 Manchester City 34

5 Arsenal 33

6 West Ham United 32

So Leicester will win the league, and by some margin by the look of it. The wonderful thing with football, of course, is that all of this can – and probably will – have changed by Sunday night. All that can be said with some kind of certainty is that we are experiencing one of the most exciting title races in a long time and that we should enjoy it while we can.