The Premier League's festive fixtures aren't quite as relentless as they used to be. Even just a decade ago, playing four matches in 12 days or so -- including matches on both Dec. 26 and 28 -- was common. By comparison, everyone playing three games between Dec. 21 and Jan. 1 seems almost tame. (Just ignore the part where most other major leagues give their players time off during this period.)
Technically we've got one more festive matchday to go, but we're officially at the midway point of the league season, and the 30 games in this festive span to date have produced quite a few interesting plot devices for whatever Premier League race you're most interested in. Half the league is within five points of a potential Champions League spot, six teams are within five points of the relegation zone, and only four teams are in the purgatory in between (and two of them are Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United, which is kind of fun in its own right).
The world's best league might also be its most interesting, so let's look at how this run of festive matches has impacted the table.
Liverpool are the best team in the world right now
Festive results:
- def. Spurs 6-3 (xG differential: +4.4)
- def. Leicester 3-1 (+1.7)
- def. West Ham 5-0 (+2.8)
One thing I've begun to enjoy this season is using our TruMedia dashboard to quickly take a look at a team's performance vs. its opponents' strength. Here's each Premier League team's average points per game in this three-match festive batch compared to the average Opta power ratings for their three opponents.
Four teams -- Arsenal, Liverpool, Newcastle and Nottingham Forest -- took all nine points from these three matches, and all four did it against relatively weak opposition. Meanwhile, Manchester City took only four points against a similar batch of opponents, and Chelsea took only one. Thanks to their postponed derby with Everton, Liverpool have a game in hand on the rest of the potential title pack, and only Arsenal are within seven points of them. Chelsea are 10 points back, City 14.
According to Opta's power ratings, Liverpool now have a 90% chance of winning their second Premier League title, while Arsenal are at 9.5%, and Chelsea and City under 0.5%.
Liverpool have played 27 matches in all competitions this season, and they've only lost once (1-0 to Forest on Sept. 14). But it's more than that: They've also left almost nothing to chance.
They've produced an xG differential lower than plus-0.4 on just three occasions, and they have yet to produce one worse than minus-0.1. They've won six matches by at least three goals. They rank first in both goals scored and goals allowed per possession, and they rank second in xG per shot and second in xG allowed per shot. And in three festive matches in an eight-day span, they outscored opponents 14-4, winning a back-and-forth 6-3 track meet against Spurs and then almost completely erasing the attacks of Leicester and West Ham. Mohamed Salah produced eight combined goals (four) and assists (four) in this span, three more than anyone else in the league.
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This is a confident, controlled squad, and while you can talk yourself into Liverpool maybe needing an extra midfielder or a new left back in this January transfer window -- or, perhaps, trading out the minimally effective Darwin Núñez and adding a new attacker -- the vibes are so good right now that the thought of changing anything feels risky. This is the best team in the world at the moment, one that is one of the primary favorites for each of its four competitions: They're first in the Premier League, first in the Champions League league phase and safely into the EFL Cup semifinals. And to say the least, it would be a surprise if Accrington Stanley prevented them from advancing to the FA Cup fourth round as well.
Newcastle have found their Champions League form
Festive results:
- def. Ipswich 4-0 (+1.6 xG differential)
- def. Aston Villa 3-0 (+2.4)
- def. Manchester United 2-0 (+1.1)
One of Liverpool's worst performances of the season was a 3-3 draw at Newcastle on Dec. 4, in which the home team produced a plus-0.1 xG differential and put three balls in the net. It only briefly slowed the Reds down, but it also seemed to light a fire for their opponents.
Over the past month, Newcastle might have been the second-best team in the league. They suffered an unlucky 4-2 loss at Brentford three days after Liverpool's visit -- they attempted shots worth 1.5 xG and allowed shots worth 1.2, making that final score awfully unlikely -- and have since outscored five opponents by a combined 16-1. They avenged the Brentford loss by beating the Bees 3-1 in the EFL Cup quarterfinals, and in a five-day span over the holidays, they walloped Aston Villa and Manchester United.
In these seven matches starting with Liverpool, the Magpies got not only eight goals from Alexander Isak but also two assists from a team-leading 20 chances created. He trails only Salah and Chelsea's Cole Palmer in total combined Premier League goals and assists this season.
Salah is on another plane of existence, but Isak is not far behind Palmer for second place. Plus, midfielder Bruno Guimarães has contributed four assists over the last month, and wingers Jacob Murphy and Anthony Gordon combined for five goals and eight assists.
The lineup has been stable for once, as well -- 11 guys have each played at least 430 of 630 minutes in this span -- and they have jumped from 11th to fifth in the Premier League table. Considering the league is decidedly likely to earn a fifth Champions League bid for 2025-26 thanks to its solid current play in UEFA competitions, fifth is a pretty good place to be.
The competition is heavy here. Chelsea and Manchester City are still in solid shape for a top-five finish despite recent travails -- quite a few travails, in City's case -- upstarts Forest and Bournemouth refuse to drop many points, and again: half the league is still within five points of the top five. But Newcastle have money, a recent history of Champions League-level play and some potential momentum as well.
Nottingham Forest will play in Europe next season ...
Festive results:
- def. Brentford 2-0 (+0.2 xG differential)
- def. Tottenham 1-0 (+0.2)
def. Everton 2-0 (+0.7)
One of my favorite teams of late was the Union Berlin squad that defied both its own history and its underlying xG figures for most of a three-year span while recording three straight top-seven Bundesliga finishes in the early 2020s. Led by Urs Fischer, they were a counter-attacking menace, keeping bodies behind the ball, allowing mostly low-quality shots, blocking a lot of them, countering like crazy and defying the xG gods for quite a while. They didn't create loads of high-quality shots, but they repeatedly created specific shots they were very good at finishing.
Under Nuno Espirito Santo, Nottingham Forest have followed that script awfully well in 2024-25. They don't force high turnovers and they have the lowest possession rate in the league (39.6%), but they rank first in the Premier League in xG allowed per shot (0.11), they're never caught out of position, and they average the third-most counterattacking shots in the league. They rank just 18th in xG per shot in attack (0.13), but if they get the ball to Chris Wood in one specific area of the box, he puts the ball in the net.
See if you can find that spot:
Wood has scored 11 goals from shots worth just 6.9 xG, with all of his success coming from a pretty tight area. Defensive midfielder Elliot Anderson leads the team with five assists (two to Wood), and the trio of attacking midfielders typically accompanying Wood on counterattacks -- Anthony Elanga (right), Morgan Gibbs-White (center) and Callum Hudson-Odoi (left) -- has combined for seven goals and seven assists.
It's not an attack loaded with options, just specific ones at which they thrive. Oh, and if Forest get a lead, they put away the match. They're currently averaging a league-high 2.08 points per game in matches decided by zero or one goals, and while that's not sustainable over a number of seasons, Union Berlin proved you can keep it up for quite a while as long as the specific recipe remains intact. (Union also proved that when the magic runs out, it runs out almost immediately. But we'll worry about that later.)
Wood scored the opener against Everton, then assisted the Gibbs-White goal that put the match away. And with nine points from three festive fixtures, Forest have clawed their way into third place, only two points behind Arsenal and six points clear of sixth place.
Whether they can keep up a Champions League pace remains to be seen, but if we assume that the top seven Premier League teams end up playing in UEFA competitions next season -- five in the Champions League, one in the Europa League, one in the Conference League -- then it bears mentioning that Opta now gives them a 68.8% chance of finishing seventh or better in 2024-25. Even with rich underachievers lurking, Forest are stockpiling points and giving their fans a taste of magic. And almost 30 years after their last European competition (they lost to Bayern Munich in the UEFA Cup quarterfinals in 1995-96), they're inching back toward continental play.
... and Manchester United won't
Festive results:
- lost to Bournemouth 0-3 (xG differential: +0.7)
- lost to Wolves 0-2 (-0.4)
- lost to Newcastle 0-2 (-1.1)
So, the new manager bump lasted about 3½ matches. Ruben Amorim's tenure as Manchester United's leader began with a draw against Ipswich, wins by a combined 7-2 over Bodø/Glimt and Everton and a 0-0 halftime score at Arsenal. In the 7½ matches since, they've been outscored 18-9. They did beat Viktoria Plzen and a flailing Manchester City in mid-December, but since the win over City, they've lost four straight.
Losses to Spurs and Bournemouth were unfortunate -- they allowed seven goals from shots worth 2.4 xG -- and the Wolves match was scoreless before Bruno Fernandes' 47th-minute red card.
If you squint just right, only the loss to Newcastle was a particularly poor performance. But damage done is damage done at this point: United are 14th in the table, one point closer to the relegation zone (seven) than the top seven (eight). Opta gives them only a 0.1% chance of relegation -- they are in no way in serious danger, no matter how friendly that thought may be from the perspective of website page views and general social media engagement -- but they also have only an 8.7% chance of a top-seven finish.
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It appears to be a "Conference League or bust" situation, and at this point United are one of the few teams in the league that seem to have very little to play for at the moment. In a way, that can be freeing -- just let Amorim work with his team with minimal pressure and see what pieces he needs this coming summer. He has already played 24 different guys in all competitions, and he seems to be clicking well with 22-year-old right winger Amad Diallo (two goals and five assists in just 818 minutes under Amorim), among others.
That said, "Manchester United" and "minimal pressure" aren't words that tend to go together; if this club was capable of actually developing a sense of patience, it probably would have long before now.
Ipswich Town and Wolves aren't relegated yet
Wolves' festive results:
- def. Leicester 3-0 (+0.3 xG differential)
- def. Manchester United 2-0 (+0.4)
- drew with Tottenham 2-2 (-1.5)
Ipswich's festive results:
- lost to Newcastle 4-0 (-1.6)
- lost to Arsenal 0-1 (-1.7)
- def. Chelsea 2-0 (-0.4)
I was curious what might happen when the schedule eased up a bit on Wolves. In their first eight Premier League matches of the season, they played each of the current top six teams (Liverpool, Arsenal, Forest, Chelsea, Newcastle and Manchester City), plus Brentford and Aston Villa away. It was a brutal way to start, and they pulled exactly one point from those eight matches.
There were some dreadful performances in there, and Villa had the third-worst xG differential in the league after eight matchdays. But their schedule strength was so much harder than everyone else's. It wasn't a guarantee that they were hopeless.
Granted, things fell off the rails in early December. After easy wins over Southampton and Fulham, Wolves lost four straight, including three to teams currently 13th or worse. That got Gary O'Neil sacked. But lovely performances against Leicester and Manchester United and a relatively fortunate draw with Spurs got them off the mat in a lovely way. They're now a point clear of the relegation zone and only one point behind 16th-place Everton.
Ipswich, meanwhile, keep doing just enough to keep themselves alive. They were handed an absolutely brutal festive slate, facing three of the top five teams in the league, and after dire performances against Newcastle and Arsenal, they pulled off their most important result of the season.
Young star Liam Delap put away an early penalty then assisted an Omari Hutchinson goal on the counter, and keeper Christian Walton made a couple of enormous saves to secure three points. They're still in the relegation zone, but only by one point, and with Southampton all but assured of relegation (they're already 10 points from safety) they just have to beat out basically two of Leicester, Wolves and Everton to stay up.
Their odds aren't great, but they aren't doomed yet either.