Monday, May 4, 2009

Your Utterly Meaningless and Mildly Interesting 2009 Table **UPDATE**

Hull City lost again today. That shouldn't be surprising. They are winless in their last seven and have but one win in their last 19 league matches. That's a kind of competitive competence than can only be described Derby County-esque.

The Tigers were beaten 1-0 by an Aston Villa side that, a couple of months ago, was putting the fear of Europa into Arsenal. Villa, for their part, were hardly impressive in putting Hull out of their misery (or maybe closer to it in the form of relegation). It was Villa's first win in 11 league tilts.

If you had the misfortune of watching it, you could be excused for thinking it was a bottom five match-up. In fact, we thought, on form, it might have been. So we set the Wayback Machine* to the turn of the New Year and made a second semester table. Since December 31, this is what the EPL (suck it, Barclays) would look like.

It is surprisingly unsurprising (save maybe for Villa).


1 Manchester United 42
2 Arsenal 33
3 Liverpool 32
4 Chelsea 32
5 Tottenham 25
6 Manchester City 25
7 Everton 24
8 West Ham 23
9 Fulham 21
10 Aston Villa 20
11 Stoke City 19
12 Blackburn 19
13 Bolton 16
14 Portsmouth 15
15 Wigan 14
16 Sunderland 13
17 Newcastle United 11
18 Middlesbrough 11
19 West Bromwich Albion 10
20 Hull City 7


Yeah, Villa at 10th faired much better than we anticipated. But their slide didn't start until into February (although the drop in play maybe has its seeds when Laursen went down before Boxing Day). Only two other teams are more than three spots plus-or-minus their current position on the table. Tottenham are five spots to the good, and Wigan four to the bad.

There is still some shaking out to do at the top of the table as Arsenal play both United and Chelsea and, while they won't make up the gap to first, they might put some distance back to third, or fall to it. But the Big 4 are still the Big 4 with an unbridgeable gap back to the pack.

The bottom four here are also the same bottom four in the full season table. Oddly enough, the only team that is certainly going down, West Brom, is the only team in the group that is playing with any fight. Next week might settle who joins them in the drop. Hull host Stoke and Newcastle welcome Middlesbrough. A single point might be enough for Hull. But failing a positive result for them, a winner of the Newcastle v. Boro match would move out of the drop zone on goal difference.

Anyway, just something to peruse of mild interest.

Thank you for your continued support of Unprofessional F... Oh wait. That's someone else's coda.

[* 'We' here means The Fan's Attic as he did all of the necessary math. Also, apologies for the table not being easier to read. Blogger is fascist in the way it refuses to recognize tabs or even multiple blank spaces.]

TFA UPDATE: Here's the rudimentary table I created.
EPL Second Semester Table




12 comments:

Jason Davis said...

Blogger sucks for table. I usually revert using a shitload of dashes, which might be even uglier (and then I obsess about making the points line up, but of course they're never quite there).

Can we remember this please when next year comes around and some promoted club plays well, getting everyone hot and bothered?

Of course not.

Precious Roy said...

I thought about doing the dashes or using periods, but figured that would be even uglier.

As for Hull... when I was doing the DS column people were emailing me almost daily asking me why I hadn't written anything fellating Hull. Long season. Kind of why I'm pulling for them to drop (I'll feel smrt!). Also because Brown is an Allardyce disciple and I don't care much for Fat Sam.

BackBergtt said...

Don't make it like Deadspin, you'll get that one United fan hitting on all the chicks in the threads here.

Shocked Villa have that many points, I guess they didn't really lose much. I hope Hull can hang on just so Newcastle and Boro get the ole cornhole treatment.

Precious Roy said...

Well, of Villa's 20 points, a full half of those (10) had been picked up before the end of January.

I thought Arsenal would eventually catch them, but I thought it would be nervy and involve the Gunners needing a result against 2 of Pool, Chelsea, and United. I never would have bet it would have been mathematically locked up with 3 games left in the season.

I'm almost as interested in what happens with Villa (does Barry leave, who do they bring in for depth, etc.) this summer as with the top four clubs.

Anonymous said...

Don't make it like Deadspin, you'll get that one United fan hitting on all the chicks in the threads here.Ha... I'd completely forgotten about that cat.

As for Villa, MO'N needs to find himself some new Scandanavian center backs.

jjf3 said...

Man, if the Big 4 don't argue in favor of "It's not how you start, it's how you finish", I don't know what does...(well, other than Rovers and Stoke being in position to stay up...)

Unknown said...

models of consistency: everton, fulham, west brom.

The Likely Lad said...

c'mon you spurs! nick that 4th spot!

Email us at said...

Well, Bertin, the sentiment with us is that while Barry is likely off, Petrov is likely to re-up. The two big names we're after are Fabian Delph and Steven Defour (both of whom I believe Prof. Wenger are interested in).

On the defensive side, we, like Arsenal, are kicking the tires on Hangeland, though I don't know why Rescue Roy would want to sell him. Also in the frame are Micah Richards and Nicolae Dorin Goian from Steaua Bucharest. I myself would love to see O'Neill get cheeky and buy Lescott from Everton.

Precious Roy said...

Like Defour (although, he's already in his 20s so he might be too old for Wenger). Richards has regressed. Where does Barry end up?

Rafa's courting him is an open secret, but can Los Rojos ship Xabi Alonso?

No, they can't. He gets too many other players sent off.

Email us at said...

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Professor come in for Gareth- his price tag is slashed in half now that he's on the last year of his contract, and Wenger would provide CL football and a likely starting place for Barry. At the same time, Barry might be the piece that pulls it all together for Arsenal; we've already seen through his recent England form that he functions well partnering a flair midfielder like Cesc/Nasri/Arshavin. He'd also likely provide steel in midfield and help out the backline tremendously.

As sad as it would be to see him go, I think both sides need to see it happen.

Jim Hendry said...

When I think Gareth Barry, I do not think "steel in midfield"