The Title Race 2022/23

[alexmcity]

Posted this in the Arsenal thread, but for context - here's the points totals for the first and second halves of the season for the top 10 points totals in the PL era:

Chelsea 05/06 - 91pts (52/39)
Rags 99/00 - 91pts (45/46)
Dippers 21/22 - 92pts (44/48)
Chelsea 16/17 - 93pts (49/44)
City 21/22 - 93pts (47/46)
Chelsea 04/05 - 95pts (46/49)
Dippers 18/19 - 97pts (51/46)
City 18/19 - 98pts (44/54)
Dippers 19/20 - 99pts (55/44)
City 17/18 - 100pts (55/45)

Tends to be a fair fluctuation in performances. Saying Arsenal "only" need 40 pts to make 90 is dismissing how difficult it can be. They've not got a squad or any prior form to suggest they'll get into the list above. Keep the faith. Momentum will change when we give them a battering on Friday.

Thanks for that post.

Chelsea in 05/06 dropped only 5 pts in the 1st half of the season and 18 pts in the 2nd half. And they had a much better squad than this Arsenal. It doesn't mean Arsenal will be the same, only that it's far from guaranteed they won't be like that.

I'm more worried about us. Several key players from the previous two seasons are not in form or thinking about leaving. Pep should help them to perform at their best in the run-in. Otherwise, it will be difficult.

 

[Corky]

Thanks for that post.

Chelsea in 05/06 dropped only 5 pts in the 1st half of the season and 18 pts in the 2nd half. And they had a much better squad than this Arsenal. It doesn't mean Arsenal will be the same, only that it's far from guaranteed they won't be like that.

I'm more worried about us. Several key players from the previous two seasons are not in form or thinking about leaving. Pep should help them to perform at their best in the run-in. Otherwise, it will be difficult.

Chelsea eased off as they could, and still won by 8.

 

[bluenova]

You could also argue that it shows how unlikely it is that a team that got 50 points from the first half of the season, would get anything less than 40 from the second half. Since all of those sides except Chelsea 05/06 got comfortably over 40 points in the second half.

Without looking into the stats, surely that's a self-selecting argument? It's a list of record totals, all 91pts or over, so it's made up of the teams that had a good season throughout. If you got 50 in the first and 40 in the second you wouldn't have made the list, and there will be plenty of times that a team had a 10pt difference between first and second halves of the season.

It does show that even in the best seasons, most had a change from one half to the next of between 5 and 13 points. In that list the four occasions where a team got 50+ in the first half of the season, the drops off were 5, 10, 11 and 13 in the second half of the season (arguably the biggest drops coming when teams tied the league up early - but they are still big).

 

[alexmcity]

Chelsea eased off as they could, and still won by 8.

Their squad players back then were probably better than most Arsenal players.

Genuine question: how many Arsenal players would start for any of those Chelsea, Liverpool and City teams that won 50+ pts over the first 19 games? 2-3 players. In other words, it was easier for those teams to be consistent over a whole season.

Fair play to Arsenal and Arteta if they are consistent and win the title. I'm more worried about our team spirit and Pep's relationships with some players than about Arsenal.

 

[supercity88]

You could also argue that it shows how unlikely it is that a team that got 50 points from the first half of the season, would get anything less than 40 from the second half. Since all of those sides except Chelsea 05/06 got comfortably over 40 points in the second half.

We're talking about the best points totals in PL history. The average tally is 87pts so we'd be fair to suggest Arsenal will only get 37 more points! I don't know the stats for the other sides. I could have a look back, but I was interested in those with the highest points just to see what the differences were. There are plenty of factors which impact it. If you have a huge gap you might drop off. If you have FA Cup/CL latter stage games you make changes. Or injuries.

The main point is not to assume because they got 50pts in the first half, getting 40+ points is going to be easy. We were 3pts ahead after 19 games last season then 8pts ahead after 21. It swings from week to week. The media had crowned up after 21 games yet we only won it by 1pt in the end!

As has been said, the biggest factor is whether Pep can get the team to respond to his kick up the arse. We know we can go and get 45-50+ points if we have the right attitude.

 

[Roachy]

The key thing for me is to close the gap before the game in April. Tbh there were too many games 1st half of the season where we huffed and puffed a touch, and we need to return to our scintillating best really from here on in. If Arse keep hoovering up points there's little we can do. If they falter we need to be on their shoulder and capitalise.

 

[shevtheblue]

We hadn’t been good enough this season up to half time against Spurs. That’s why Pep had his rants. I’ve been saying it for a while that we haven’t looked ‘at it’ this season.

Even against Wolves, we were better, but we had to rely on them to gift us a penalty and kick the ball straight to us for us to score two of our goals. Bar the Haaland headed goal, the Gundogan headed miss and the Grealish shot on the first half we created next to nothing.

We have been up and down all season, the pinnacle was the Utd game and the bottom was maybe Southampton. But there have been times in the past few seasons where we haven't looked brilliant, we slowly pick away at it and get some kind of form and go on a mad run. It's possible, but i really think it needs someone like Ruben to come back and put a rocket up some of them (although he himself hasn't been great).

 

[Cityinmyheart]

If we beat Arsenal home and away we would win the league.

 

[supercity88]

I don't know what it means and I'm burnt out. Don't even ask me...but here you go.

Season	Team	1st half of season pts	2nd half of season pts	Total Points	Gap to 2nd	Gap at halfway
21/22	City	47​	46​	93​	1​	3​
20/21	City	41​	45​	86​	12​	1​
19/20	Dippers	55​	44​	99​	18​	16​
18/19	City	44​	54​	98​	1​	-7​
17/18	City	55​	45​	100​	19​	13​
16/17	Chavs	49​	44​	93​	7​	6​
15/16	Leicester	39​	42​	81​	10​	GD
14/15	Chavs	46​	41​	87​	8​	3​
13/14	City	41​	45​	86​	2​	-1​
12/13	Rags	46​	43​	89​	11​	7​
11/12	City	45​	44​	89​	GD	GD
10/11	Rags	40​	40​	80​	9​	2​
09/10	Chavs	42​	44​	86​	1​	1​
08/09	Rags	41​	49​	90​	4​	-1​
07/08	Rags	45​	42​	87​	2​	1​
06/07	Rags	47​	42​	89​	6​	2​
05/06	Chavs	52​	39​	91​	8​	11​
04/05	Chavs	46​	49​	95​	12​	5​
03/04	Arse	45​	45​	90​	11​	-1​
02/03	Rags	35​	48​	83​	5​	-4​
01/02	Arse	36​	51​	87​	7​	-3​
00/01	Rags	43​	37​	80​	10​	8​
99/00	Rags	45​	46​	91​	18​	1​
98/99	Rags	34​	45​	79​	1​	-2​
97/98	Arse	33​	45​	78​	1​	-10​
96/97	Rags	34​	41​	75​	7​	-2​
95/96	Rags	35​	47​	82​	4​	-10​
Average		43​	45​	88​

 

[Coatigan]

We hadn’t been good enough this season up to half time against Spurs. That’s why Pep had his rants. I’ve been saying it for a while that we haven’t looked ‘at it’ this season.

Even against Wolves, we were better, but we had to rely on them to gift us a penalty and kick the ball straight to us for us to score two of our goals. Bar the Haaland headed goal, the Gundogan headed miss and the Grealish shot on the first half we created next to nothing.

We started the season incredibly well. First few games, there was talk and pundits were asking if we could the season winning all games or unbeaten, we looked that good.