West Ham To Win The Premier League?

As I write this I’m watching Everton lose to Fulham at Craven Cottage and as a Liverpool fan it puts absolute delight in my heart to see Everton in the bottom three.

Of course, I know that they will not stay there because they are a fantastic team with a fantastic manager, but with five games of the Premier League season in the books (for most teams anyways), some people are already beginning to turn up their panic dials while others are beginning early celebrations.

I decided to do a little bit of research and thanks to the amazing people at www.statto.com, I was able to see what the table looked like after 5 games last year and found some peculiar facts about last season. Take a look:

1. The top four teams consisted of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Aston Villa (with the final top four being Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal). At the moment, the top four teams are Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and Spurs.

2. Eventual league champions Manchester United sat miserably in 12th place with a mere 5 points from 5 games. Currently sitting in 12th place is West Ham United (so place your bets now for West Ham to win the league!!!).

3. The bottom three consisted of Stoke, Newcastle and Tottenham. Only one of those teams got relegated. Currently, the bottom three consists of Bolton, Everton and Portsmouth. I forsee only one of these teams also getting relegated and to give you a hint, it’s the one that rhymes with Sortsmouth.

4. Spurs were in last place (Have you heard that they only had 2 points from 8 games?). They finished the season 8th. Currently, Portsmouth are in last place (and quite frankly, I don’t see the same kind of turnaround happening over there. Sorry Pompey fans).

5. Hull City was standing tall in 7th place. With 8 points they had already accumulated 23 percent of their total points.

6. Middlesborough were flying high in 13th place. By putting six balls past the opposing keeper, they had already scored a fifth of their total goals.

7. Liverpool had scored only 5 goals and still found themselves in third place (having conceeded only 2).

8. The blue team from Manchester led the league in goals with 15 (that averages out to 3 per game!!!). They finished the season with 58 goals. This means that 25 percent of City’s goals came in the first 5 games of the season.

9. Arsenal had the best goal differential at +9; Portsmouth had the worst at -7 (coincidentally, Pompey have that same goal differential after 5 games this year as well).

10. Manchester United had scored only 4 goals which was tied for the lowest amount of goals forward with Fulham, Newcastle and Tottenham.

11. The only team to score 6 goals in one match all season last year was Manchester City against Portsmouth. Arsenal have already done that this year to Everton.

So for those of you beginning your early celebrations, I would probably stop right there in your tracks because the season is like Luke and Ashley; Young (I know, I’m brilliant).

And for those of you who are down in the dumps and preparing to commit suicide (particularly the Everton fans out there…) DON’T (even though I don’t like you, there’s no need for mass suicide now). You never know what will happen in the season so wait until its conclusion until you start your moaning and groaning. And hey, who knows, maybe Pompey will indeed stay up. And maybe West Ham will win the league. I’ll let you know how it goes 33 games from now.