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Points Differential Tracker


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I'm starting a thread to track how the 17 teams that were in the Premier League last season are faring compared to their results in the same games the previous season. This is often interesting later in the season as an indicator as to how teams have improved compared to the previous year.

I could substitute the three promoted teams for last year's three relegated teams but it's a pointless exercise as they are completely different sides. Therefore, Aston Villa, Sheffield United and Norwich won't be on the list and matches against those sides will count as 0 points difference regardless of the result.

I will try and update each week and point out the movers and shakers.

 

Team : Points Differential

Manchester United : +3

Burnley: +2

Everton : +2

Brighton : +1

Tottenham : +1

West Ham : +1

Arsenal : 0

Bournemouth : 0

Chelsea : 0

Crystal Palace : 0

Liverpool : 0

Newcastle : 0

Southampton : -1

Wolves : -1

Manchester City : -2

Leicester : -4

Watford: -4

 

Notable stuff so far:

- Bournemouth have played two promoted sides so far so nothing to compare.

- Manchester United are the most improved side, turning last season's draw with Chelsea into a win, and last season's defeat at Wolves into a draw.

- Despite very acceptable draws with Wolves and at Chelsea, Leicester are down 4 points on last season already, having won both of these fixtures last term.

- Watford have had a poor start, losing at home to Brighton where they won last season. They were also able to secure a point away at Everton last season but were defeated this weekend.

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Thought about this the other day and as you say, will be good to keep track of where clubs are in correlation to last season.

I imagine some of our home games against lower-table opposition will be vastly different to last season. I'd fucking hope so anyway. If we lose/drop points against sides like Southampton, Newcastle, Palace, Burnley, at home again I'll be annoyed especially considering we've made improvements in our squad and playing style has changed/is changing. We should be getting results against those kinds of sides to be quite frank.

We lost against Cardiff at home as well but fair enough not including promoted sides as I agree all sides are completely different and therefore not a fair barometer to compare with. 

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We have to wait until our fifth game before we can gain anything on this. It had crossed my mind that although draws aganst Chelsea and Wolves aren't bad by any stretch, we did win both fixtures last season. Then again, I think the win at home to Wolves was extremely fortunate to be honest and became a bit of an outlier when I was looking at our home form last season.

The games I really hope we pick up some on this are:

- Newcastle (h) - lost 0-1
- Burnley (h) - drew 0-0
- Crystal Palace (a) - lost 1-0
- Brighton (a) - drew 1-1
- Everton (h) - lost 1-2
- Southampton (h) - lost 1-2
- West Ham (h) - drew 1-1
- Wolves (a) - lost 4-3
- Watford (a) - lost 2-1
- Crystal Palace (h) - lost 1-4
- Bournemouth (a) - lost 4-2
- Man Utd (h) - lost 0-1

I think we're capable of getting better than that in every one of those.

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On 20/08/2019 at 14:03, Stan said:

Thought about this the other day and as you say, will be good to keep track of where clubs are in correlation to last season.

I imagine some of our home games against lower-table opposition will be vastly different to last season. I'd fucking hope so anyway. If we lose/drop points against sides like Southampton, Newcastle, Palace, Burnley, at home again I'll be annoyed especially considering we've made improvements in our squad and playing style has changed/is changing. We should be getting results against those kinds of sides to be quite frank.

We lost against Cardiff at home as well but fair enough not including promoted sides as I agree all sides are completely different and therefore not a fair barometer to compare with. 

The home form was the biggest undoing of Puel I think above all else. I could not go into any home game confident. Even the Cardiff game I had a niggling feeling we'd lose it despite what we'd done just before that and sure enough we did.

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Not many changes this week:

 

Burnley +3

Newcastle +3

Crystal Palace +2

Everton +2

Man Utd +2

Brighton +1

West Ham +1

Arsenal +0

Bournemouth +0

Chelsea +0

Liverpool +0

Southampton -1

Man City -2

Tottenham -2

Wolves -3

Leicester -4

Watford -4

 

- Everton, Leicester and Chelsea's totals are unchanged this week due to facing newly-promoted opposition.

- Manchester United and Crystal Palace drew at Old Trafford last season, meaning United only lose 1 point and are knocked off top spot while Palace gain 2.

- The rest of Saturday's results matched last season's, somewhat surprisingly given Southampton's win at Brighton and West Ham's win at Watford.

- The late kick offs on Sunday were the only other changes. Burnley were denied an upgrade to +5 by Wolves' late equaliser but still gain a point that they didn't achieve last season with a draw, Wolves drop two.

- Newcastle's win at Tottenham is the only full three point swing of the week, a game they lost 1-0 last season. This leaves Bruce's men as the joint most-improved side at this early stage. Rafa who?

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Its odd when you look at it through just this perspective because you've then got to see the actual table and the fact that even though Leicester are a -4 on their last season differential the fact that they are sitting in fourth is good for them. Furthermore, Newcastle with the +3 are in the relegation zone. And they say stats can tell you things .... hmmmm.

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4 hours ago, Mel81x said:

Its odd when you look at it through just this perspective because you've then got to see the actual table and the fact that even though Leicester are a -4 on their last season differential the fact that they are sitting in fourth is good for them. Furthermore, Newcastle with the +3 are in the relegation zone. And they say stats can tell you things .... hmmmm.

Yes it's a very small sample size at the moment. Both of the teams you've mentioned have had very different results against a promoted side each. Leicester's total is also heavily skewed by the fact they got an unexpected win at Chelsea last season, while Newcastle played Arsenal and Spurs away in their first two games, both of which they lost last season, so even if they lost both again their score by this measurement would still be at 0.

When we get to about 10 games it will give a much better picture. Leicester in particular will gain a lot of points just by average/expected results, as you will see from where they dropped a load of points in decent fixtures last season, Dan posted them above.

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6 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Yes it's a very small sample size at the moment. Both of the teams you've mentioned have had very different results against a promoted side each. Leicester's total is also heavily skewed by the fact they got an unexpected win at Chelsea last season, while Newcastle played Arsenal and Spurs away in their first two games, both of which they lost last season, so even if they lost both again their score by this measurement would still be at 0.

When we get to about 10 games it will give a much better picture. Leicester in particular will gain a lot of points just by average/expected results, as you will see from where they dropped a load of points in decent fixtures last season, Dan posted them above.

Yeah I agree on that. The more time spent and the sample size growing we'll start to see less erratic (maybe) behaviour in the way things look on the table versus the board too. Still, its nice to see a change in things from last season showing that teams have the ability at various stages of the season to show improvement compared to last season. The other one that surprises me is the Chelsea statistic, I'd imagine their fans think they are worse for wear than normal but that stat shows that they are actually exactly where they were last season with no actual improvement at the start of the season.

P.S. If it hasn't been said already thanks for doing this its quite nice to see micro/macro improvements in point differentials through the season.

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So for this weekend's fixtures, this is what happened last season:

Southampton and Man Utd drew.

Leicester beat Bournemouth.

Man City beat Brighton.

Watford won at Newcastle.

Liverpool won at Burnley.

Wolves won at Everton.

Arsenal beat Tottenham.

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1 minute ago, Pyfish said:

Love this idea. Nice one @RandoEFC!

Liverpool and Man City will be good to keep an eye on to see where they dropped points last season in comparison to those same games this time round.

True, it'll be a mega achievement if either of them come out with a positive score here.

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Updated standings after 4 games:

 

Everton +5

Newcastle +4

Burnley +3

Crystal Palace / Man United +2

Brighton / West Ham +1

Bournemouth / Chelsea / Liverpool +0

Southampton / Tottenham -1

Arsenal / Man City -2

Leicester -4

Wolves / Watford -6

 

Takeaways:

- Those that faced newly-promoted opponents this weekend (Chelsea, West Ham and Crystal Palace) see no change to their score with no corresponding fixture to compare to last season.

- On Saturday, four of the five results were the same as last season, Liverpool's win at Burnley, City's win over Brighton, Leicester's win over Bournemouth and United's draw at Southampton, so no change in score for any of these sides.

- Watford were unable to repeat their win at St. James' Park from last season. This sees their score drop to -6 after four games, despite picking up their first actual point of the season. Newcastle gain another point and go onto +4.

- Everton are the only team to turn a loss into a win this weekend, having lost at home to Wolves last season. This sees the Toffees top this table going into the first international break with a score of +5. Meanwhile, the three points damage for the visitors sees their score drop to -6, joint bottom.

- Tottenham rescued one of the three points they lost to Newcastle last weekend by turning last season's defeat at The Emirates into a draw. This improves their overall score to -1 while Arsenal lose two points and go joint with Man City on -2 overall.

 

I'm still working on a way to somehow incorporate the results against the promoted sides in a way that actually represents something meaningful. I think this has to come later in the season, when there has been enough games to start comparing teams' overall points hauls against Norwich, Sheffield United and Aston Villa to their overall points hauls against Cardiff, Fulham and Huddersfield last season. 

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This next four games for us between the two international breaks - anything above one point from the four games will be points gained. Weirdly only Liverpool (a) is the one we picked anything up in.

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This weekend and last season's results:

Liverpool v Newcastle (home win)

Brighton v Burnley (away win)

Man Utd v Leicester (home win)

Spurs v Palace (home win)

Wolves v Chelsea (home win)

Bournemouth v Everton (draw)

Watford v Arsenal (away win)

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I think for the promoted teams you just need to judge 6 games against 6 last year.

So whatever we get against Sheffield United, Aston Villa and Norwich will be compared against the 13 points we got from Huddersfeld, Fulham and Cardiff.

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21 minutes ago, Dan said:

I think for the promoted teams you just need to judge 6 games against 6 last year.

So whatever we get against Sheffield United, Aston Villa and Norwich will be compared against the 13 points we got from Huddersfeld, Fulham and Cardiff.

I will do that later in the season probably. At the moment I could treat Norwich, Sheffield United and Villa as direct replacements for Cardiff, Fulham and Huddersfield but it's a lot of effort for what amounts to very unreliable and irrelevant data if you want to look at individual games. Perhaps during the second half of the season I will include a secondary score showing how far away each team is from reaching their total achieved against last season's three relegated sides.

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2 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

I will do that later in the season probably. At the moment I could treat Norwich, Sheffield United and Villa as direct replacements for Cardiff, Fulham and Huddersfield but it's a lot of effort for what amounts to very unreliable and irrelevant data if you want to look at individual games. Perhaps during the second half of the season I will include a secondary score showing how far away each team is from reaching their total achieved against last season's three relegated sides.

Just work it in order of fixtures. Could be a huge ballache but for example...

Sheffield United 1-2 Leicester is ranked against Leicester 3-1 Huddersfield (as that was our first game against one of those three). Our next (Aston Villa away, 7th December) is marked against Cardiff away (as that was our second), and so on.

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1 minute ago, Dan said:

Just work it in order of fixtures. Could be a huge ballache but for example...

Sheffield United 1-2 Leicester is ranked against Leicester 3-1 Huddersfield (as that was our first game against one of those three). Our next (Aston Villa away, 7th December) is marked against Cardiff away (as that was our second), and so on.

Could do it that way without too much hassle I suppose, I'll have to take it under consideration.

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After this weekend's fixtures:

Everton & Newcastle +4

Chelsea +3

Crystal Palace, Man Utd, Brighton & Bournemouth +2

Burnley & West Ham +1

Liverpool +0

Southampton & Tottenham -1

Man City -2

Arsenal & Leicester -4

Watford -5

Wolves -9

 

- No change this week for Southampton, Man City or West Ham as they all play newly-promoted sides.

- The following fixtures were the same as last season: Spurs beat Palace, Liverpool beat Newcastle and United beat Leicester. Therefore, none of these sides see any change to their score.

- Burnley drop two points compared to last season as they only manage one point at Brighton instead of three. Brighton also gain a point taking their score to +2.

- Chelsea are the only team to achieve a full three points swing this week, winning at Wolves where they lost last season. This takes them to one point off the top while Wolves' poor start to the season sees them slump to a pretty horrific differential of -9 already.

- Bournemouth manage to turn their draw against Everton last season into a win, gaining two points. The loss of that point for Everton pulls them back down to being joint top with Newcastle on +4 points.

- Watford manage to reduce some of the damage of their opening four fixtures by gaining a point at home to Arsenal. Emery's men lose two of the points they took from Vicarage Road last season and see their score drop to -4.

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On 15/09/2019 at 18:44, LFCMike said:

Three of our next four fixtures are games we drew last season so interesting how they go

I think you'll be comfortably beating us this season at your place.

I know we have a decent-ish record at yours (compared to other teams!) but you'll be too strong this season.

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Six sets of fixtures down, here's how things look now:

 

Newcastle +5

Everton / Bournemouth +4

Crystal Palace +3

Chelsea / Man Utd / Liverpool +2

Burnley / West Ham +1

Brighton +0

Leicester -1

Southampton / Man City -2

Tottenham / Arsenal -4

Watford -5

Wolves -11

 

This week's events:

- No change in score for Everton, Arsenal and Burnley who faced newly-promoted sides this week.

- On Friday, Bournemouth gained two points and Southampton lost one as the Cherries ran out 3-1 winners in a fixture that ended 3-3 last season.

- Leicester gained the only full three point swing on Saturday lunchtime with their victory over Tottenham, improving their score to -1, while Spurs join their rivals on -4.

- Manchester City repeated their home win over Watford last season, this time by a much heavier scoreline.

- Newcastle restore their surprise lead at the top of this metric, their 0-0 draw with Brighton an improvement on last season's home defeat. The loss of two points for Potter's men leaves them as the only side on exactly 0 points gained or lost so far.

- Wolves drop to an incredibly damaging -11 points, only securing a late draw at Palace in yet another fixture they won last season. For context, if Wolves scored 11 points fewer than their points total last season, they would have finished in 12th place behind The Eagles. A shocking amount of points for them to lose compared to last season after just six games. Palace, meanwhile, gain another point and move to a net improvement of 3 points.

- West Ham's win over Manchester United looks like it should be an improvement but actually they comfortably dispatched their opponent's at the London Stadium last season too, so no change for either team.

- Liverpool had their first opportunity to gain some points compared to last season on their visit to Stamford Bridge, and delivered a win to replace the draw against the Sarri regime. This gives them a score of +2, equal to their opponents who drop a point.

 

Next weekend's fixtures and their corresponding results from last season to compare to:

Liverpool, Crystal Palace and Burnley face newly-promoted sides so no comparisons.

Bournemouth v West Ham (home win)

Chelsea v Brighton (home win)

Tottenham v Southampton (home win)

Wolves v Watford (away win)

Everton v Man City (away win)

Leicester v Newcastle (away win)

Man Utd v Arsenal (draw)

 

Big opportunities for Wolves to make some amends and Leicester to ruin Newcastle's spell at the top of this table.

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