The Premier League just as sterile and inevitable as the SPL
iF WE were to have the old system of two points for a win and one for a draw, West Ham United would be hovering just one point above the relegation places, with Manchester City, Tottenham and West Brom propping up the Premier League.
I have a special piece of computer software that will show what rules need to be changed each season to ensure West Ham get relegated, and this is what it came up with yesterday. One day I will not need the software at all, maybe soon. Teams managed by dead left-wing French novelists will always struggle to stay up, in my opinion. No grit.
In the real world, West Ham are only six points off a place in the Fairs Cup, or Uefa Cup, or whatever they call it now: the Great European Also-Rans Trophy, whatever. This is shaping up to be the sort of season critics of the Premier League long imagined would become the norm; 15 or 16 teams scrapping it out to avoid relegation, the gap between those sides and the top four stretched way beyond breaking point. As you may have noticed, the bottom nine clubs are separated by only three points - that’s one fortuitous win courtesy of an idiotic refereeing decision to make the difference between a nasty and probably prolonged spell in the Championship and possible European qualification.
The bottom 12 clubs are separated by only six points - that’s the gap between Boro, on 17 points, and West Brom at the bottom. Anyone who saw these two play at the end of September might argue that even this margin is overstating the case somewhat. The top four sides appear impervious to change and challenge, no matter how fragile Arsenal sometimes become when harassed, or how Manchester United might stutter. The surprise, in a way, is that Aston Villa do not look as if they feel equipped to challenge the top four, as Martin O’Neill points out, week after week. And the likelihood is that this bunching will expand as Hull City, sadly, succumb to the harsh realities of life; so, we will have the bottom 14 scrapping to avoid relegation come Christmas - and you would not bet against Everton, in seventh, joining in either. And to think we used to mock the Scottish top division for its sterility and inevitability.
There are compensations, though, this time around. The old adage that you should try to win your home games and draw your away games has been blown away by a sudden mathematical awareness occasioned by the desperate need to survive. Managers have worked out that attempting to secure a point apiece in five away games and succeeding on maybe two of those occasions is much less useful than setting out to win and succeeding only once in five attempts. The clubs at the bottom - by which I mean below Villa - now try to win all of their games; they throw everything at the opposition and sometimes emerge with an unlikely three away points.
Obviously there is a 33% chance that any football game will end in a draw, assuming everything else is equal, and indeed, in the past, roughly one third of games in all divisions were drawn. Not this season; the proportion of draws is down to between one in four and one in five matches played. The stalemate is becoming an endangered species, although not one we should wish to preserve, because its elimination has become bracing and thoroughly entertaining.
Hull City do not put 10 men behind the ball at either Arsenal or Manchester United and the consequence is that they lose one, narrowly, and win one, narrowly, giving them a far better return than if they had attempted to nick a point in each game by employing the sort of tactics utilised by Marshal Zhukov in the defence of Stalingrad (including shooting deserters). Those extra points may well be the difference between relegation and survival.
Stoke fling everything at the Gunners, Boro attack Villa away from home - and both emerge with three points. There are appalling reverses, of course: Boro at home to Chelsea, Hull at home to Wigan and so on; when the plan fails, it tends to fail spectacularly. But these crushing defeats are less indicative than they might have been. Here’s an interesting fact, not one club in the top division has drawn a full third of its games, although Blackburn, Newcastle and Wigan have This season could see the biggest relegation dogfight in the history of the Premier League. Only seven points separate seventh-placed Everton from bottom club West Brom. At the same stage last season there was a 16-point difference.
Only seven Premier League teams have a positive goal difference, while West Brom (20th) have a better home record than Everton (7th). Newcastle (17th) have the same goal difference as Portsmouth (8th).
Only three clubs outside the Big Four have won more games than they have lost. I bet they all finish in the bottom six. Draws are not enough any more.
The same is applicable, to a lesser extent, in divisions below the Premier League. My club, Millwall, are nestled tidily in what appeared, before the season started, to be a hugely unlikely third place. We have not drawn since August and have been hammered several times, home and away. It used to be that teams who regularly lose by three or four goals will not win anything - it seemed almost a truism. Not any more. You dust yourself down, launch another all-out assault and let the maths do the work.
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