Back in 2020, during the first few months of the pandemic, I ranked every Premier League season because ... well, what else was I going to do? Rated by a number of factors, like the quality of the title race and the overall uncertainty from week to week, the 1997-98 season came out first.
That year saw Arsenal make up a 13-point midseason gap to surpass Manchester United and win the league. Three huge clubs, Everton, Newcastle and Tottenham, all seriously flirted with relegation, while the end-of-season gap between first place and the first relegation place was just 38 points. Last year, that same gap was 58 points. Heck, the gap between first and eighth was 41 points. The point being: back in 1998, anything could happen on any given weekend.
Fast-forward 25 years, and that might be true once again. The balance in the title race seemingly shifts with every goal scored by or against Manchester City and Arsenal. The top-four race is the biggest and most unpredictable one in recent memory; 7-0, anyone? And nearly half of the league is within six points of the bottom of the table. Flip on the TV on Saturday or Sunday and chances are you'll find a game with massive implications for the title, top-four, or relegation race -- if not all of the above.
With the chaos likely to continue all the way through the end of the season, let's take a look at all of the teams involved across the Premier League's various battles and try to provide some context. Using FiveThirtyEight's probabilities, I've ranked all 16 teams by the likelihood that they'll achieve their goals, and I've included only the teams with at least a 5% chance of doing whatever it is they want to do. So, apologies to Fulham, Brentford, Chelsea and Aston Villa; enjoy watching everyone else lose their minds!
1. Crystal Palace to stay up: 92%
This is the Palace performance a lot of us expected to see last season. The main reason this particular probability is so high is simply because they've already banked a significant number of points. Through 25 matches, Palace are averaging 1.08 points per game -- more than eight other teams in the league. That said, only three teams have a worse expected-goal differential, and only Bournemouth have created fewer xG.
My guess is that they end up dipping down toward the bottom three -- next three matches are home against City, then away at Brighton and Arsenal -- but ultimately surviving. For Palace to get relegated, not only do they have to collapse, but they also need at least five of the teams below them to go on a run. Given the requirements of being in a relegation fight -- mainly "not being good at soccer" -- that latter point doesn't seem particularly likely.
2. Leicester City to stay up: 89%
The Foxes recovered from their early-season cratering -- until they didn't. Since the World Cup ended, only Bournemouth have won fewer points than Leicester's seven and over that stretch, Leicester have allowed 19.9 expected goals -- more than any other team in the league. Mix that in with a struggling shot-stopper in Danny Ward, who has allowed four goals more than average in his first season as a starter in a top-flight league, and the downside is pretty clear.
With that kind of defense, Brendan Rodgers and Co. will need to score to keep themselves in the league, and, uh, this happened just a week ago:
They're only two points clear of 18th, so why 89%? Well, this same core of players has added up to a midtable-or-better team in the past, and outside of Jamie Vardy and Jonny Evans (who might secretly be one of the best Premier League defenders of the 21st Century), none of the other key players have really aged out their primes yet. These players should be better ... right?
3. Wolverhampton to stay up: 87%
From the outside, it looks like Julen Lopetegui has helped right the ship. But outside of "having a bunch of bounces go his way," I'm not sure that's actually true. Here's how the underlying numbers compare across the three Wolves managers from this season:
- Bruno Lage: 0.9 xG per game, 1.2 xG allowed per game
- Steven Davis: 1.1 xG, 1.5 xGA
- Julen Lopetegui: 1.0 xG, 1.6 xGA
Although they've produced an even goal differential and 1.5 points per game under Lopetegui, they've arguably been even worse since he took over. Now, some of that is driven by a tough schedule -- they've played City, Manchester United and Tottenham once, plus Liverpool twice, since the World Cup -- but it wouldn't surprise me if we saw a downturn in results even as the schedule eases up.
4. West Ham to stay up: 86%
We exit the "bad teams with enough points or good players" portion of the program and begin the "kind of good team with an inexplicably low number of points" part of proceedings. Here's the Premier League xG table, unadjusted by number of matches played:
Yes, West Ham United have a positive xG differential. And yes, West Ham United are currently just one point outside of the relegation zone. Despite a truly awful performance against Brighton over the weekend, this team, which still has most of the players who've been on the fringes of a top-four fight over the past two seasons, is way better than their place in the table.
The big question for the rest of the season: Will David Moyes stick with what has been working (beyond the whole "converting shots into goals" thing), or will he make changes that risk making the team worse?
5. Manchester United to finish top four: 74%
As I've been saying for most of the season, United are a top-four contender that fooled everyone into thinking they were something more because of the decline of their rivals, their massive fan base and an unsustainable succession of one-goal wins. Well, that all came crashing back to Earth on Sunday.
Will they hang on? On the one hand, they're less likely to finish top four than all of those previously mentioned and quite poor teams are to avoid relegation. On the other, they still do have a seven-point cushion on fifth-place Liverpool. Plus, they've already played all of their matches against Liverpool, City and Arsenal, so the remaining schedule isn't that bad, either.
While it's natural to look at each successive game in a season as either an obstacle to overcome or a springboard for future success, I try to look at each match as another piece of evidence about a team's true quality level. So I don't see the 7-0 loss as something that's suddenly going to destroy United's season, and I also don't see it as a blip to be ignored and moved past. No: now we know that Manchester United are a team that's capable of getting absolutely annihilated by the opposition. Their current goal differential is plus-6. Eight teams had outscored their opponents at a higher clip. Their true level is lower than where I thought it was before Sunday.
Now, they're not the ninth-best team in the league, but they're also probably not the third-best team in the league, either. My guess is that from here, a number of teams in the chasing pack outperform United over the remainder of the season, but that seven-point cushion is enough to keep them in the top four.
Jurgen Klopp praises Mohamed Salah for becoming Liverpool's record scorer in the Premier League after brace vs. Manchester United.
6. Leeds United to stay up: 71%
Under Jesse Marsch, Leeds were a slightly below-average team that conceded more than they created ... but not by much. Most of their struggles under Marsch came down to the thing that decides matches but almost no one can control: the conversion of individual chances. Had Leeds and their opponents converted their chances at roughly average rates, Marsch would still be the coach, and Leeds would be somewhere closer to midtable.
Instead, they're currently in 17th, even on points and ahead of 18th-place Everton just because of their superior goal differential. The solution for an underperforming team is almost always "fire the manager," and perhaps it'll do the trick for Leeds. But that also ignores another possibility: sometimes you fire the coach, and you get worse.
It's too early to say which direction it's going to go under Javi Gracia -- one decent performance against Southampton, one poor one against Chelsea -- but Leeds could finish in 20th, or they could go on a run and land in, like, 13th. Neither outcome would surprise me.
7. Nottingham Forest to stay up: 59%
If there are two things you take from this exercise, let it be these: (1) there are a lot of bad teams in the Premier League this season; and (2) banking points is more important than being a good team.
Per FiveThirtyEight's rating system, Forest are the worst team in the Premier League. Despite signing an entire micronation's worth of players over the past eight months, they're rated below multiple MLS teams in the model. And yet Forest still have more points than six other Premier League teams! That, more than anything else, is why they're likely to last at least another year in the top flight.
8. Arsenal to win the Premier League: 54% and 9. Manchester City to win the Premier League: 45%
I might as well do these together since they fall right next to each other. Consider this the upscale version of everything we've gone over: you'd rather have the points than be the better team. I don't think there are many people who have watched this whole season -- or even just watched the game when they played each other -- and would have a problem saying that Manchester City are a better team than Arsenal.
What do I mean by "better"? Well, if they played 10 games on a neutral field, who would win more often? The answer is Manchester City because, well, the answer is Manchester City against probably every other team in the world.
Although they're not as good as City, Arsenal are still a fantastic team; FiveThirtyEight rates them as the fifth-best club in the world. It's quite the come-up for a team that hasn't finished higher than fifth in its own league since 2016. Plus, they have a five-point lead, which matters for a number of reasons.
For starters, Arsenal have probably the two hardest games of the season still to go: away at Liverpool and away at City. Not only does the lead give them a cushion on City in case of some inevitable dropped points; it also means that a draw at the Etihad would be a massive result. A draw or a win would benefit the Gunners, while only a victory would push the title odds toward City.
For most of the season, City have been close enough that it seemed likely that they'd rope Arsenal in, like they always do. But a five-point deficit with just 12 games to go is a lot bigger than it might sound. Right now I'd lean Arsenal, but that's likely to change plenty over the next few months. I mean, it changed plenty on Saturday morning alone. Had they lost to Bournemouth -- and they were down 2-0 with 30 minutes left! -- Arsenal's title odds would've dropped to 34%. A draw wouldn't have been much better -- 39% -- but Reiss Nelson's last-second goal flipped them from underdogs to favorites.
If Arsenal hang on, that'll go down as one of the most important goals in Premier League history.
10. Liverpool to finish top four: 43%
Among the various hurdles Liverpool need to clear from here on out -- their maddening inconsistency, their ongoing injury crisis, the fact that they're currently only sixth in the league in points per game -- the biggest one might be their schedule. They still have to play City on the road, Chelsea on the road, Arsenal at home and Spurs at home.
The rest of the run-in is very manageable, especially when you consider that barring an unlikely comeback against Real Madrid next week, they'll be playing only Premier League games for the rest of the season. They can probably still sneak into the top four with a stretch of unimpressive results across those four matches, but the Tottenham game in particular looms large for their top-four hopes.
- Marcotti: What the 7-0 win means for Liverpool
- How Liverpool's win ranks among biggest thrashings
FiveThirtyEight rates Liverpool as the sixth-best team in the world and the third-best team in the league. As we saw on Sunday, they still might have a higher gear than anyone else, but this season has also been a story of a steadily lowering floor. Unsurprisingly, though, the team seems better when the likes of Ibrahima Konate, Diogo Jota and Roberto Firmino are all available. And more reinforcements should be on the way as Thiago and Luis Diaz are both expected back sometime soon, too.
This team is still wildly talented, and they still have the coach who's guided them to every major trophy over the past five years. But despite the recent uptick in results, we still haven't seen them string together anything more than a couple weeks of convincing performances this season. If they do, one of those Champions League spots should easily be theirs.
11. Everton to stay up: 42%
I promise that these two were paired together by coincidence. And outside of the Merseyside Derby, Everton have been way better since Sean Dyche took over.
Even with matches against Arsenal and Liverpool taking up a third of his tenure so far, Dyche's team has created 8.0 xG and conceded 9.21 xG through six games. That's not anything special, but it's right around what you'd expect from a league-average team, and Everton would've killed to be a league-average team just a few months ago.
Unfortunately, none of that Burnley conversion magic has transferred over to Everton just yet; they've conceded 10 goals and scored only four goals from those chances. They're tied with 17th-place Leeds on 22 points, but they've also played an extra game. With matches still to go against both Manchester clubs, Chelsea, Spurs, Newcastle and Brighton, the remaining schedule isn't particularly kind, either.
Maybe the bounces will start going their way, but when you dig yourself such a big hole, playing well isn't always enough to get out of it.
12. Southampton to stay up: 38%
More than anyone else's, Southampton's season might come down to their goalkeeper.
Before the season and under new management, Southampton shifted toward a new team-building model that sprinkled low-cost deals on a collection of unproven young players. One of them was Gavin Bazunu, a 20-year-old former Manchester City product who had never started a game above the League One level prior this season. Bazunu is a young player by any definition of the word, but especially for a goalkeeper, a position where you don't typically hit your prime until your late 20s and even into your 30s.
Along with James Ward-Prowse, Bazunu is the only Southampton player to appear in every minute of every match this season. But while JWP is leading the team in goals, Bazunu has so far done the opposite. Bazunu has so far done the opposite. Per Stats Perform, he has conceded 37 goals from opposition shots, while the average keeper, faced with the same exact shots, would be expected to concede 25.9. That's a gap of 11.1 goals; no other keeper in the league is even above seven.
Orange are goals, purple are saves:
If Bazunu can just keep that number at around minus-11 and play out the rest of the season as a roughly league-average shot-stopper, then Southampton probably stand a decent chance of staying alive. If not, it's really hard to see them piecing together enough results to stay up.
13. Bournemouth to stay up: 36%
They are the worst team in the league. Why? Well, it's pretty simple: They're in last place. But if you want more than that, it's still pretty simple: Bournemouth have created the fewest xG of any team in the Premier League, and they've conceded the most.
Being the worst defending and the worst attacking team in the league is -- to quote former New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi -- not what you want. But it could, somehow, still be a recipe for survival for at least a season.
Given the relative lack of quality among all of the relegation candidates -- outside of xG darlings West Ham -- all Bournemouth really need to do from here on out is to be slightly better than three of the teams we've already talked about. Or they could also just be worse than all of them but still get lucky. Either one works.
14. Tottenham to finish top four: 28%
Yes, they're currently in fourth, but they've also played more games than any of the other teams in the top-four race. On top of that, they've produced just the seventh-best xG differential in the league so far this season after putting up numbers that came close to rivaling Liverpool and City once Antonio Conte took over last year.
The main story: one of their stars disappeared. Last season, Heung-min Son averaged 0.9 non-penalty goals plus assists per 90 minutes. This season, that's down to 0.39 -- and it's all backed by an underlying decline, too: from 0.7 npxG+xA per 90 last season to 0.46 this season.
While Harry Kane has continued to produce, Spurs' third forward, Dejan Kulusevski, has also struggled: 0.46 npG+A/90, down from last year's half-season mark of 0.96. Kulusevski ran hot last season, while Son turned 30 and was bound to decline eventually. As such, Spurs went from three world-class forwards to one world-class forward without losing any key players.
That said, they have the points in the bag. Conte is a great coach. Richarlison, their fourth forward, probably won't go a full season without scoring a goal, and there's always a chance that either Son or Kulusevski or both just simply start to play better.
15. Brighton to finish top four: 26%
See if you can figure out who these teams are just by looking at the numbers. "Field tilt" represents a team's share of all the final-third passes in its matches, while PPDA (passes allowed per defensive action) is a proxy for pressing. The lower the number, the more aggressive the press:
- Team A: 1.8 xG per game, 1.2 xG allowed per game, 63.5% field tilt, 11.01 PPDA
- Team B: 1.8 xG, 1.5 xGA, 57% field tilt, 12.33 PPDA
- Team C: 1.7 xG, 1.3 xGA, 56.2% field tilt, 12.60 PPDA
- Team D: 1.3 xG, 1.2 xGA, 45.5% field tilt, 14.66 PPDA
Any guesses? Team A is ... Brighton since they hired Roberto De Zerbi in early September, while Team B is Liverpool, Team C is Manchester United and Team D is Tottenham over that same stretch. Strip the names away, and Brighton are doing everything -- creating chances, suppressing shots, controlling the field, pressing -- better than their much bigger-name rivals. If we go by just past performance this season, then Brighton should be the favorites to finish fourth. If they win all of their games in hand, then they'll be ahead of Spurs and Liverpool.
Unfortunately, though, you can't just throw away the names of the teams and the players. Eventually, most players will start playing toward the levels they've played at in the past, which brings us to the final team on the list ...
16. Newcastle to finish top four: 24%
On Jan. 23, FiveThirtyEight gave Newcastle a 55% chance of finishing top four. Since then, they drew two league matches to relegation fighters Bournemouth and West Ham and then got smoked by both Liverpool and Manchester City. Not only did those matches more than halve their Champions League qualification chances, but the underlying performances dropped Newcastle from the fourth- to the sixth-best side in the league, according to FiveThirtyEight's team-strength model.
Given how surprising Newcastle's first half of the season was, the simplest explanation is that a bunch of their players had played some of the best soccer of their careers at the same time -- and then that stopped happening. Of course, that doesn't mean we should write them off, either. Sure, Bournemouth have a better chance of not getting relegated than Newcastle do of finishing top four, but a 1-in-4 chance is a very real chance.
It's not where they were a month ago, but it's still way beyond where they were at the start of the season.