About six weeks ago I did a piece predicting West Ham to win the Premier League based on their league position this year and Manchester United’s league position last year after 5 games.
That prediction hasn’t been working out too well (hopefully you didn’t think I was serious…although I’m pretty sure I still managed to annoy some Millwall fans…) and so I thought I’d take a look once again at where things stood last season in comparison to this season. Plus, Liverpool lost for the fifth time this weekend, and, well, you’ll understand why I want to take a look at the table exactly one year ago today when you see it.
14 Possibly Interesting Facts About The 2008/2009 Premier League Season Compared to the 2009/2010 Premier League Season That You Might Like (Redundancies should be reported to the Redunancy Department of Redundancies):
1. This time last year, Liverpool was atop the Premier League with 8 wins from 10 matches and 3 points clear of Chelski. This year, the Blues hold a two point lead over Man United for the lead while Liverpool have stumbled to their fifth loss of the season and find themselves in 7th place.
2. Wigan (8 points), Bolton (8 points) and Tottenham (6 points, 2 from 8 games if you recall…that stat will never get old) populated the wrong end of the table in the relegation zone. This year, Hull (8 points), West Ham (7 points) and Portsmouth (7 points) find themselves in the same predicament.
3. The three teams that were eventually relegated, Middlesborough, West Brom and Newcastle, stood in 9th, 16th and 17th place, respectively. Place your bets now on Stoke (9), Wolves (16) and Blackburn (17) to find themselves in the Championship come next year as they find themselves in the same spots as well.
4. Chelsea owned the best goal differential at +18. At +20 this year, their goal differential still tops the league.
5. The worst goal differential in the league was -7, a tie between Stoke and Blackburn. Phil Brown’s (for the moment anyways) Hull City currently owns the worst goal differential at -16.
6. Chelsea stood in 2nd place. Manchester United currently stands in 2nd place. I’d tell you to place your bets on Man United to win the title, but as a Liverpool fan, I’m sorry but I simply cannot bring myself to do that.
7. The 3rd place spot was occupied by Arsenal. It still is.
8. There have been 19 1-nils this season.
9. Bolton had failed to score in 6 of their first 10 matches. Doing their best imitation of the Wanderers, Portsmouth have failed to score in 6 of their first 11 matches.
10. Chelsea have let 8 goals in this season, doubling the amount the had let in last season (for those not too savvy at math, that means they let in 4 last year). Coincidentally (and NOT ironically, as some would say), they still have allowed the least goals this season.
11. West Ham was the only team to be drawless after 10 games last season. This season, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Burnley have all taken the 3-points-or-no-points approach in each of their 11 matches as well.
12. Nicolas Anelka (19), Cristiano Ronaldo (18) and Steven Gerrard (16) lead the league in scoring last season. Fernando Torres (9), Darren Bent (8), and Didier Drogba (8) are on pace to lead the league in scoring this season. Torres is in line to score 22, with Drogba and Bent on pace to gather 19.6 goals (if you would like to know how to score 0.4 goals, go ask that blasted beach ball).
13. Robin Van Persie lead the league in assists with 11 last season. Fabregas already has 9, putting him on pace to have a hand in 22 goals by the end of the year.
14. The worst discipline belonged to Wilson Palacios and Marouane Fellaini, who both gathered 12 yellow cards to their name all of last season. So far this season there is a 9 way tie for the worst discipline. They’re all on pace to gather up 11 yellows.
11 games down and 27 to go. Who knows, maybe Portsmouth will go on a 27 match win streak and win the league. And maybe Abigail Clancy will break up with Peter Crouch and marry me. But as Andy Gray of FIFA10 likes to tell me, the table after 10 games is usually very similar to the table after 38.
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