By Brian Sears  19 August 2016 It was this time a year ago that we wrote that Chelsea’s title hopes were as good as gone after two games – purely from a statistical history point of view. Jose Mourinho’s team (as they were then) had lost both their opening games, and in the piece linked here we […]

By Joel Oberstone 18 August 2016 Arsenal began the season with a home defeat. Some fans already have their annual revolt against Arsene Wenger underway. It’s business as usual, this growing disquiet that club and manager will make a mess of hiring good new players. With the next fixture on Saturday away at champions Leicester, now is perhaps […]

By Sportingintelligence 24 May 2016 Leicester’s miraculous 5000-1 Premier League title win in 2015-16 made them globally famous but the prize money table for the season was topped by Arsenal, with official figures released today showing they have pocketed £100,952,257 from central funds alone. The money comes primarily from the PL’s huge TV deals but also includes Arsenal’s share […]

By Brian Sears  22 January 2016 Arsenal enter the weekend at the top of the Premier League table but here comes an acid test of their title credentials, a game against Chelsea. The Gunners’ recent record against Chelsea has been poor. Worse than poor. Awful. Wretched. Lousy. Miserable. Paltry. Or shocking, hopeless, inadequate, tortured (if you want to […]

By Brian Sears  31 December 2015 Of all the teams who spent any time in the four main divisions of English football in 2015, Burton, Arsenal and Middlesbrough were the standout performers in the calendar year. Those three clubs were the only three who amassed more than two points per game in the year, with Burton top […]

By Brian Sears 4 December 2015 In Arsene Wenger’s reign as the manager of Arsenal they have gained as many as 36 Premier League points from the first 14 games of a season (in 2007-08) and as few as 21 (in 2012-13) but the average for the Wenger era is 27. That’s the amount they’ve got so far this […]

By Brian Sears 27 November 2015 Just over a third of this Premier League season is complete and still the number of away wins remains unusually high, in fact on a par with the number of home wins. Of 130 games played, 48 have been away wins (the same as home wins), with 34 draws. We keep on […]

By Brian Sears 16 October 2015 None of the previous Premier League champions – and 23 of them since the inaugural 1992-93 breakaway season is a fair sized sample – won fewer than 14 points from their first eight games before going on to take the title. And only two managed it after winning as few as 14 points, […]

By Brian Sears 2 October 2015 It was four years, one month and a few days ago that this happened: Arsenal went to Old Trafford on 28 August 2011 and were given an absolute mauling as Manchester United thrashed and embarrassed them, 8-2, with Wayne Rooney scoring a hat-trick, Ashley Young getting two, and Danny Welbeck, Nani […]

By Brian Sears 7 August 2015 There are many ways to try to predict the winners of the Premier League title, as this site explored in great detail two years ago. The odds on getting even the top 10 in the correct order are 670,442,572,800 to 1. Yes, that’s 670 billion to one. And then to complete the […]