Football fans in England will be starting to familiarise themselves with the Premier League table ahead of its long-awaited return on Wednesday.
After an absence of exactly 100 days, Aston Villa will take on Sheffield United on Wednesday evening before Manchester City host Arsenal.
With a break of more than three months, we don’t blame supporters for forgetting all about the 2019/20 campaign.
A quick glance at the table and you’ll soon remember that Liverpool are about to win their first ever Premier League title, while there is a fight between the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United and Wolves for a top-four finish.
Meanwhile, down at the bottom, there’s an almighty dogfight to stay in the division.
There is a saying that the league table never lies but we all know that’s a load of codswallop.
In fact, according to data experts, Infogol, the Premier League table is a big fat liar.
Using expected goals for and expected goals against, they’ve worked out where each side ‘deserves’ to be in the table.
They write: “The Expected League position is the position a team ‘deserves’ to be in given their performances thus far. The Infogol model assesses the chances a team creates and concedes in each match and simulates the chance of getting each result to estimate the number of points they could expect to get given their performances.”
So, how *should* the Premier League table look right now?
How the PL table *should* look
Let’s see:
Wait, wait, wait.
Liverpool are 25 points clear in real life but, according to Infogol, they don’t actually ‘deserve’ to be top…
Instead, they sit second behind Manchester City, while Chelsea and Wolves make up the top-four.
Interestingly, Leicester, Everton and Southampton and all above Manchester United, while Sheffield United and Brighton make up the top 10.
You have to go all the way down to 13th to find where Arsenal ‘deserve’ to be, while north London rivals Tottenham find themselves occupying 15th.
Meanwhile, the bottom three should be made up of West Ham, Newcastle and Aston Villa. Imagine the size of those three clubs all being relegated in the same campaign.
But you don’t always get what you ‘deserve’ in football and this league table is a perfect example of that.