Avoiding the Drop

This past weekend I noticed something, there aren’t any “great” teams in the Premier League this season. I realize that’s a cliche, but it’s true. There isn’t one team who you could say have already laid claim to being the team to beat. There also isn’t a team who you can point to and say that they’re going to win the title outright. You were able to do that the last couple of years with Manchester United, but this season after losing their star player and a key striker, they’re certainly not a lock to win the title.

This all got me wondering if it was because perhaps there is now parity in the league and it’s become much more even than it has in years past. While we’re still only about a quarter of the way into the season, the season is far enough along that you’re able to look at the table and roughly see how things are going to happen. Was this years table able to tell us if there had been more parity than we’ve seen in prior seasons though?

Not really, last season there were 13 teams with 10 or more points up to this point, whereas 14 teams have at least 10 points this season. The 10 teams in the middle this season are separated by 8 points, were they were separated by 7 points at this point last season.

This season has some things last season didn’t have though. For starters the teams outside the traditional “Big 4″ that have done well are much less flukey as they were last season. Hull City and Portsmouth were in the top 7 last season but then finished in the relegation zone, though Pompey certainly could have been a top 10 team last season if they hadn’t sold everyone in January.

This season of course we’ve got Manchester City joining the fold as a serious contender and despite the fact that they’re probably not going to challenge for the league just yet, we know they’re not flukey. Tottenham has also gotten off to a much better start than they did last season, and will probably continue on this path considering they just barely missed out on a Europa League spot last season despite picking up 2 points in their first 9 matches.

We also know Aston Villa is strong too thanks to last season’s performance, so there really isn’t any reason to discount their good start. Sunderland should also remain in the mix, provided Darren Bent And Kenwyne Jones are able to keep up their impressive scoring run.

This also isn’t counting Everton who’ve had a slow start the last couple of seasons, but are slowly regaining their place this season.

Despite the fact that the table doesn’t show any damning evidence of parity, this could be the closest the Premier League has ever been to having it. There are at least 6 strong teams that will be competing for the four Champions League spots, and another three that will probably be in the mix for the Europa League positions as well. While the Premier League can probably never reach the parity levels that the NFL has, this season we certainly seem to have more teams that can be competitive and give every team a good game. This means we should be able to enjoy meaningful matches through the season and could easily see the battle for the title, and the battle for spots in European competition go down to the last day.

Special thanks to commenters Nick Davies and Kevin for helping me find the tables for previous seasons.