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Ryan O’Hanlon
What were you up to last Thursday around 1:30 p.m. ET? I have a good idea.
It was New Year’s Day, so you were likely feeling a bit fatigued or even hungover. Chances are you had the day off, and given that you’re reading this column, there’s a good chance you’re a fan of the Premier League. With your sluggishness and lack of responsibilities, I bet you were dozing off in front of your television at that time.
How do I know? Because there were four Premier League matches happening simultaneously, and they were all quite underwhelming.
Crystal Palace and Fulham ended in a 1-1 draw, while Liverpool, Leeds United, Sunderland, Manchester City, Tottenham, and Brentford collectively…well, didn’t score at all. In those 360 minutes of Premier League action on New Year’s Day, only two goals were scored. The teams that have won the last eight Premier League titles couldn’t find the net against two newly promoted teams, and the side boasting the league’s most advanced stadium failed to score against a club they had just poached their manager from. Meanwhile, a supposed contender underperformed against Fulham in their own stadium.
Given the declining quality of open-play attacking in the Premier League, you might have awakened from your nap with the thought: This league is underwhelming.
It seems that nearly every team still has a shot at qualifying for the Champions League. Besides Arsenal, are there truly any standout teams? The Gunners are on a six-match winning streak, but only one other team, Newcastle United, has managed to win consecutive games.
However, once you had your coffee or retired for the night, you might have realized something else: Those same statistics could support a contrasting perspective, couldn’t they? Perhaps it appears that there are no standout teams simply because everyone has become fairly competent?
Now that we’ve had a few days to recuperate, let’s pose the question: Is the overall quality of the Premier League this season genuinely excellent or truly poor?
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Arguments for the Premier League being poor
Let’s begin with this:
And to dispel any notion of randomness, here’s the same chart, showcasing open-play shots instead of open-play goals:
To avoid any threats from Arsenal supporters again or unwanted interactions online, I won’t dwell too much on this aspect. But if teams are struggling to score in open play, it indicates something significant about the league’s quality: they aren’t skilled enough to execute the toughest part of the game—scoring goals from active play without relying on set pieces.
This lower quality is particularly evident at the upper echelon of the league.
Using expected goal differential, we can assess the caliber of chances each team is creating and conceding. From the 2009-10 season through last season, 64 Premier League teams averaged an xG differential of +0.5 or more per game, averaging four teams each season. However, this season, we’re only seeing two—no other season has recorded fewer than three. Just last year, when Liverpool dominated the league with 84 points, five teams achieved this standard.
At the bottom, Wolves find themselves with just six points after 20 matches, the second-lowest total in Premier League history. They recently beat West Ham, who sit 18th, 3-0 while producing nine shots on target and conceding none. Yet the team in between these two might be performing even worse. Since 2009, only two teams have concluded a Premier League season with a lower expected goal differential per game than Burnley, whose current differential stands at a troubling -1.08.
With no goals from open play, a scarcity of good teams, and a surplus of poor teams, the league’s quality is questionable.
Arguments for the Premier League being stronger than ever
Imagine a league with a standings chart resembling this:
This appears to be the premier league globally—without a doubt. You’d have two teams that have won the Bundesliga in the relegation zone, alongside a team currently competing in the Champions League. Immediately above them is the club leading Ligue 1, along with the top team in the Netherlands for the third consecutive year, and the current champions of Serie A.
These names were not selected at random; they illustrate the perceived strength of the Premier League according to the betting markets.
At the website PitchRank, Tyson Ni documents betting market power ratings by analyzing the odds for each match across major European leagues and competitions. The calculations are complex but rely on the idea that you can assess how teams compare by examining their odds against each other.
Interestingly, PitchRank’s ratings indicate that Eintracht and West Ham are considered to be on a similar level. Here’s how Liverpool fared against Eintracht Frankfurt in an actual match:
And here’s their performance against West Ham United:
The outcomes and performances in this season largely reflect this reality.
Arsenal managed to dominate Bayern Munich and Atletico Madrid in London. Manchester City triumphed over Napoli at home and Real Madrid away. Although Liverpool faltered against PSV at Anfield, they’ve also defeated both Madrid teams at home and Inter Milan away. They might struggle with set pieces in the Premier League, but they excel in the Champions League. Chelsea bested Barcelona 3-0. Furthermore, both Newcastle and Tottenham have superior goal differentials in the Champions League compared to their Premier League stats.
Currently, all six Premier League clubs would rank in the top 15 of any European league phase.
In the Europa League, Nottingham Forest holds the second-best expected goal differential, while Aston Villa boasts a record of five wins and just one loss. In Conference League action, Crystal Palace leads with an xG differential exceeding nine.
If most Premier League teams are thriving in matches against theoretically superior competition in Europe, it becomes difficult to argue that the Premier League is having a subpar season. While the matches may not be a joy to watch, the league could very well be more competitive than ever before.
And why wouldn’t it be? The Premier League has the richest television contracts of any European league and allocates its revenues more equitably than its main rivals. Among the top 30 wealthiest clubs globally, the latest data indicates that 16 are Premier League teams.
However, despite this financial advantage, the rest of the league still hasn’t quite reached the level of the traditional Big Six: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur. The ratio of wage bills between the Big Six and the rest of the league has remained at about 2.5-to-1 for over ten years. This past summer, we saw Liverpool and Arsenal invest in player acquisitions in a way that only a few clubs worldwide can manage.
Nevertheless, because of the more equitable distribution of the television revenues, the Big Six maintains competitiveness against giants like Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Paris Saint-Germain for the top talents, rather than surpassing them. Furthermore, as I mentioned previously, procuring these elite players comes with a substantial markup.
As a result, not only does the 100 or so top players get divided among the Big Six along with these other four, but the investment doesn’t yield the same value when acquiring these talents. While the rest of the Premier League has more finances than ever, improving their teams becomes easier compared to enhancing the best teams.
According to research by Futi’s John Muller, during the 2014-15 season, the Big Six employed 29% of the most valuable players globally, with just 7% on other Premier League teams and 64% across the rest of Europe. Fast forward to today, and the share of top players with the Big Six remains at 29%, while the proportion of top talent at other Premier League clubs has surged to 18%.
Teams aren’t necessarily retaining their players more frequently than in the past. Each Big Six club signed at least one significant player from a smaller Premier League club this summer. Instead, it’s evident that players who were once at AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund are now playing for clubs like Crystal Palace and Fulham.
This shift doesn’t bring about unexpected title contenders in the Premier League, but it does lead to teams like Aston Villa making it into the top four. Consequently, we have a Premier League table where, 20 matches into the season, the distance from 5th place to 14th place is merely four points.