"Real" table at the half-way point. Quick summary.

[Insidious]

I had planned on doing a half-way season summary, essay style - but with a broken finger and the recent malaise around camp, I thought I'd do the "real" table format and add a couple of short bits that we can reflect on at roughly the 25-game mark and the end of the season.

The table is for 19 games played, with each line representing a point. Where sides have a game in hand, I shall say, stating the number of games played in brackets after that team's name. The league leaders currently have 40 points. Those at the bottom have 5 points.

Manchester United
..........................
Manchester City (18 played) Leicester City
..........................
..........................
..........................
Liverpool
Tottenham (18 played)
Everton (17 played) West Ham
..........................
..........................
Southampton (18 played)Chelsea
..........................
Arsenal
Aston Villa (16 played)
..........................
..........................
Leeds (18 played) Crystal Palace
Wolves
..........................
..........................
Newcastle (18 played) Burnley (18 played)
..........................
Brighton
..........................
..........................
..........................
..........................
Fulham (18 played)
West Brom
..........................
..........................
..........................
..........................
..........................
Sheffield United


Context - form over last 5 matches

Liverpool - 2 losses and 3 draws (this has put Reds on high alert)

In contrast, from the same cluster -

Man United - 4 wins and a draw.
Man City - 5 wins.
Leicester -3 wins and 2 draws.
Tottenham - 2 wins, 2 draws, a loss.
Everton - 4 wins, a loss.

Some will see that it has taken seriously good results from rival sides to get a lead over us that isn't insurmountable, others will see a dire run of form from us and worry it could be a "rot" that lasts the season. Time will tell - but this will be a handy point of reference of where Liverpool "were at" that we can easily refer to in later stages, both in terms of form at the half-way point and the gaps between us and those around us, for better or worse.

Cup games to follow

Man United in the FA Cup.
RB Leipzig in the Champion's League.

[faridtoxteth]

I think i am a bit too slow to understand that Sid. Isn't the real table the one that we see at the end of every week?
Just like to throw in my own opinion...
I don't think Man utd can win the league. The only two other teams who play good enough football to finish above us are Man City and Leicester.
We have won everything under the sun, and for 18 months were the best club side in the world. Now we are having a dip. It's the way of nature. I am not that worried. Even in games where we are not sharp you can see that we have it in our muscle memory to completely dominate opposition.

[Insidious]

I think i am a bit too slow to understand that Sid. Isn't the real table the one that we see at the end of every week?

It's just a different lay-out, not to be read into too deeply.

Let's pretend City were top, 10 points ahead of second-place Liverpool. Liverpool were 2 points ahead of Spurs, in third. On the League table that looks like this -

1 - City
2 - Liverpool
3 - Spurs

....which isn't wrong, but doesn't highlight how big or small the gaps are at a cursory glance.

However, if laid out like this -

City
.....
.....
.....
.....
.....
.....
.....
......
......
Liverpool
.....
Spurs

...then it becomes much more obvious.

It's merely a subjective, preferred way of seeing where you are.

A month can go by and a team that was in third can still be in third, but may have clawed back some points or dropped off seriously, which isn't represented by position. Whereas this way, how much (or how little) a gap we have is an easier thing to see in relation to opponents.

[faridtoxteth]

Yes I get it now.
This time last year you wouldn't have been able to fit us on the same page as half the teams.

[Insidious]

Yes I get it now.
This time last year you wouldn't have been able to fit us on the same page as half the teams.

Well last season is actually a really great example.

I have a friend who is a United fan and he is, thankfully, a very tolerable fella and can be very fair when it comes to Liverpool.

Now, let's say he is talking to other tolerable United fans at the end of last season. One of them maybe says something like "we went from 6th to 3rd, progress!" but he might retort with the fact they actually went from being 32 points behind the eventual winners in 18/19 to 33 points behind the eventual winners in 19/20, finishing on 66 points in both seasons.

So (at that time) they actually hadn't progressed at all - they stood still and were fortunate that others regressed around them.

Whereas this season they're at 40 points halfway through. If they were to repeat that in the second half they can legitimately argue they made progress, though (hypothetical where City do well and we conjure up a lengthy run) could, potentially, finish 3rd again - with some pundits saying "3rd to 3rd is not progress" - which is unfair.

I know how the League works and that teams progress/regress all the time, but personally, outside of "did we win the League?" and "did we qualify for the Champion's League?" questions come the end of the season, the barometer I like to use isn't our position - it's the number of points behind the Champions we are, rather than the position.

With Houllier for example we ultimately plumped for Rafa because we finished 30 points off top spot, which is an enormous gap in normal circumstances.

[skyebo]

Apart from 08-09, it didn't get any better under Benitez

04-05 37 pts behind champions
05-06 09 pts
06-07 21 pts
07-08 11 pts
08-09 04 pts
09-10 23 pts.

[Insidious]

Apart from 08-09, it didn't get any better under Benitez

04-05 37 pts behind champions
05-06 09 pts
06-07 21 pts
07-08 11 pts
08-09 04 pts
09-10 23 pts.

Well, we had 3 seasons there where the distance between the Champions and ourselves was a 4-game swing or less, versus the 13-game swing of that 04/05 season.

Deep runs in Europe and an FA Cup win also certainly helped our sense of elevated status, as the League isn't the only Barometer for how a season goes - but yes, when talking about the League itself, ultimately we didn't do enough under Rafa in that department.

A shame really. Between coping with the Vampires and going up against one of the best Chelsea sides historically and one of the best United sides historically it was always a tall order.

Mourinho's Chelsea (first-time around) were super strong and the United side of '07-'09 was also a Monster, much as we hate to admit it. Indeed, even in Europe, if we measure that lot over a longer spell, they had three Champion's League Finals - thankfully Pep's Barcelona were there to stop them, or we would have been sitting at 5 each (back then) for Big Ears.

[Insidious]

Appreciate this is a niche thread, but I find it a handy visual reference point so despite some of it being unhappy reading, I'm doing a little update.

The initial table was for after 19 games played - this one is for 25 matches in. Am only going to do the top 10 for now. For ease of reading, I will include the number of points each line represents this time.

59.....Manchester City
58...........................
57...........................
56...........................
55...........................
54...........................
53...........................
52...........................
51...........................
50...........................
49.....Manchester United / Leicester
48...........................
47...........................
46...........................
45.....West Ham
44...........................
43.....Chelsea
42...........................
41...........................
40.....Everton (1 game in hand) / Liverpool
39...........................
38...........................
37...........................
36.....Aston Villa (2 games in hand) / Tottenham (1 game in hand)
35...........................
34.....Arsenal

Negatives -

Just 6 games ago we were a mere 6 points off top-spot Man United. We're now 19 points off top-spot Man City, who have absolutely ran off. That's pretty bleak reading - we have absolutely dive-bombed in comparison to their vertical take-off,
Just 6 games ago we were in 4th, one point above 5th - now it's 5 points behind Top Four - West Ham currently 4th.

It's not the League, but we would have hoped to have overcome Manchester United in our FA Cup tie.

Positives -

It's easy to feel like there are none this season and it's probably a fair enough assessment. However, a (very small) one -

Despite 4 League losses in a row and only 2 League wins since Palace (eep!) the points "swing" has been a touch smaller than we might expect. For the 2 sides above us that are within reach, West Ham have had to get 3 wins and a draw from their 5 matches to get "just" 5 points ahead, with Chelsea having had to manage 4 wins and a draw in their last 5 matches to get "just" 3 points ahead.

The take-away there is that if we were to get back on the proverbial Horse and grind out a few results (I am very much aware of how unlikely this looks/feels right now, I'm not trying to drum up false positivity), there would be opportunities to close the gap a bit and see where we are, particularly bearing in mind that Champion's League qualification could come down to the very last day of the season. This weekend for example it's easy to picture a Chelsea draw v Man United and a West Ham loss to City. If we ground out a win against Sheffield United that mini-table could look like this -

45.....West Ham
44.....Chelsea
43.....Liverpool

prior to a 6-pointer against Chelsea, as a hypothetical example. The obvious Elephant in the Room is our apparent inability to acquire a result just now - but it's worth bearing in mind how much can potentially change with one fortuitous round of fixtures and a capitalisation, which we have sadly been unable to muster with any regularity this season.

Still in the Champion's League, with the Quarters (if we get there) being a semi-distant worry due to taking place on the 6th and 7th of April.