Fans Comment
Phil Roberts

Check your Passports?
12 January 2004

The League of Changes: Team performances compared to last season in the same 19 games of 2004-05 Corrections: for "Second 8" read "Second 9" Positions after 18 games shows change Up or Down , from 2003-04 finishing positions

To follow up Peter Fearon’s piece on Everton’s comparative results, here is the full table for all the teams.

In Part One, I suggested that, if Everton had improved by 7 points in the next 9 games until midway when compared to the same fixtures last season, then we should be checking our passports are valid and looking at Ryanair timetables for August.  Well, before I go on to show how the division is doing and who I believe will finish where, the great news this Christmas was: We are on course for the Champions League!

(This is slightly delayed as I was away at Christmas and I wanted to do a half way through the season piece).

First the very top and very bottom.  We all know Arsenal have had a torrid couple of months and this is backed up by the fact that instead of the 12-point gap over Chelsea in October, they now have a 3-point deficit.  Chelsea have really stepped up a gear and are showing the same points form as Arsenal did last year.  That loss at City must really be hurting, otherwise they could have been talking of an unbeaten season.  United still trail in 3rd showing still no improvement on last season.  Down at the bottom, despite two of them climbing out of the bottom 3 in the current league table, nothing has changed and they are all performing worse than last year’s relegation teams and all three are likely to be going back to the Championship.

Now, if we look at the other 14 teams, they split into three groups.  The ones who are improving, the ones staying static and the ones sliding.

• In the first group, there is Everton, Spurs and Boro.  We are now a massive 19 points better in the first 18 games than in the same fixtures last year.  The improvement is fairly impressive so, even though we now have the 4th best points total, continued improvement at this rate could see us over 70 points and challenging Manchester United for 3rd.  Look for being over 53 points by the time we play Villa at the end of February.  Under 48 points at that point means we are falling back and the improvement has stopped. 
  • Spurs are now pushing us close ever since they got rid of their French manager. 
  • Boro’s progress is more pedestrian but if they continue they should finish with 60 points which will be interesting in terms of UEFA cup spots.
     
• In the static group I have included Villa who have now arrested the slump to October.  But still Blackburn are not that far from last season’s performances even if they are in relegation trouble at the moment.
   
• In the sliders group, there is Southampton, Liverpool and Newcastle, who are now predicted to get less than 50 points and finish in the bottom half of the table.  Was it that good a decision to sack Robson?  The other lot picked up after we beat them.  They will need an improvement to get back to Europe, but reversing a double by Southampton last year may be one way for them to get back to our current total – providing we haven’t moved still farther ahead.  Until just before Christmas, Southampton were not far away from last season, but are now starting to slip closer and closer to the relegation slots.

Whilst I believe this is better than most systems of trying to predict, two notes of caution. Christmas 2002, this method showed Arsenal holding a 12 point lead over United, who then won the title and Blackburn added 18 points in 19 games to snatch 6th place, with Everton’s one-point improvement over that time not enough to stop them dropping to 7th.  Next update, start of March, when there will be just 10 games to go.

ps Christmas was not good for us, losing 1 point in the last 3 games, that lot gained 5 and are back in 4th.  With Spurs now a point behind and Boro a further point back, it is going to be tight to get into Europe, let alone Champions League.

Phil  Roberts

©2004 ToffeeWeb