Why the Premier League table (at this stage) is the most congested in 18 years

In the early years of the Premier League, everything seemed to be up for grabs.

As they often did under Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United pulled away with a stretch of wins at the end of the 1992-93 season to lift the inaugural Premier League title, but some unfamiliar names accompanied them at the top of the table. Aston Villa went from 17th in 1990-91 to finish runners-up two seasons later. Norwich City, Blackburn Rovers and Queens Park Rangers completed the top five, with Liverpool in sixth.

The following season, Wimbledon — who came 12th in 1992-93 — ended up sixth.

But as the 2000s brought in the ‘Big Four’ era, the chances of an unlikely name elevating themselves into the upper reaches of the Premier League table like this dwindled.

As the Premier League established itself as the world’s dominant football league, bringing through the age of the ‘Big Six’, the finishing positions that qualified you for European competition the following season essentially became an exclusive club for the wealthiest and most prestigious, aside from the odd exception.

Over the first three months of this season, however, the competitiveness of old is back.

Since 2006-07, when just five points separated Arsenal in third place and Fulham in 13th in early December, the Premier League has never been more congested this far into a season.

While Liverpool are showing signs they could pull away from the pack with their five-point lead through 11 games and the bottom seven sides are cut adrift to greater or lesser degrees, just four points separate Chelsea in third from 13th-placed Manchester United.

So why is the race for Europe so tight as things stand?

When you look at the injury records for the top teams, it is easy to see why they are not replicating their dominance of recent seasons.

Mikel Arteta elevated Arsenal to title challengers two seasons ago, largely due to a durable and healthy core group of players. Last season, only Fulham had fewer separate injuries (22) than Arsenal (23), and they were fortunate to keep their key men fit for most of the campaign. This time, that good fortune has flipped on its head.

Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Martin Odegaard, among others, have all missed matches at various points over these first 11 games. Since 2022-23, Arsenal’s average points per game over Odegaard’s 76 matches in the side is 2.26, but without him (11 games), it falls to 1.82.

Extrapolated over the length of a Premier League season, Arsenal would finish on 86 points with Odegaard and just 69 without him. With the first tally, they would have finished first, or level on points with the champions, twice in the past 10 seasons and second on five occasions. Over that period, the average points tally for the fourth-placed team in the Premier League is 70.1. In other words, Arsenal are a title contender with Odegaard and a borderline top-four squad if he’s absent.

Arteta’s preferred back four from the season’s early fixtures — Jurrien Timber, Saliba, Gabriel and Riccardo Calafiori — have not started together in the league since the 2-2 draw with Manchester City on September 22 due to injuries and suspension. Calafiori looks set to return to fitness after this international break following a month out with a knee problem, but Ben White — also among Arteta’s primary rotation of defenders — now looks set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines after undergoing minor knee surgery during the November window.

It’s not so sunny up at the Etihad Stadium, either.

For the first time in Pep Guardiola’s 17-year managerial career, Manchester City’s 2-1 defeat against Bournemouth last weekend consigned one of his sides to a fourth consecutive league defeat.

The air of invincibility about Guardiola’s four-time defending Premier League champions seems to be fading. City are scoring fewer goals, conceding possession slightly more, and their counter-press (having players in optimal areas within a defensive structure to quickly win the ball back after losing it) is the most disjointed it has been since the Catalan finished third in his 2016-17 debut season in England.

Rodri has been Guardiola’s defensive anchor in holding midfield over their recent dominant stretch in the Premier League, but the 2024 Ballon d’Or winner is out for the rest of the season with a knee injury suffered in that September game against Arsenal. Opposition teams are now cutting through City’s midfield when counter-attacking far more easily. So far, they have conceded 13 Premier League goals, more than surprise package Nottingham Forest and arch-rivals United, who are in the bottom half of the table. At this point last season, they had let in just eight.

Still, City have developed a reputation for lulling their title rivals into a false sense of security with an uncharacteristically poor autumn and winter period before reeling off a stack of consecutive wins in the spring to ensure the trophy remains at the Etihad.

While Arsenal and City stutter, Liverpool are taking advantage.

Like their old chums United did in 2006-07, they are beginning to open up a gap over the chasing pack. New coach Arne Slot’s side currently lead the Premier League with 28 points thanks to nine wins and a draw from their opening 11 matches.

They’re also flying high in the Champions League, topping the new 36-strong league-phase table after half of their eight matches. While they are heading into a tough run of fixtures, with Real Madrid, City, Newcastle and a Merseyside derby against Everton on the horizon after Sunday’s trip to last-placed Southampton, few would be surprised to see Liverpool still in first place in the Premier League at Christmas.

Meanwhile, Villa and Tottenham, who were both within three points of the top at Christmas last year, are ninth and 10th. Spurs have lost as many games as they have won (five), and for various reasons, Villa have not adjusted to the squad demands that come with playing in the Champions League.

Many of their best performances, notably the 1-0 win over Bayern Munich in October, have been saved for that competition. Aside from his period at Paris Saint-Germain (who tend to dominate France’s Ligue 1 regardless of who’s in the dugout), manager Unai Emery, while a master tactician against superior opposition on European nights, has historically had trouble preparing sides to compete on several fronts.

Though he won three successive Europa League finals with Sevilla from 2014-16, Emery didn’t guide them to a top-four finish in La Liga in any of those seasons, coming fifth twice and then seventh. When he defied the odds to reach the semi-finals of Europe’s premier club competition with Villarreal in 2021-22, it again came at the cost of fulfilling their potential in domestic football — they finished seventh, 11 points behind Sevilla in fourth.

A significant reason Emery often struggles to succeed in several competitions at once is the profile of club he has typically won with. Sevilla and Villarreal are not giants of Spanish football, and while Villa famously won the European Cup in 1982, they were in the Championship this time five years ago and were just above the Premier League’s relegation zone when he was hired in October 2022.

He has typically performed best at emerging clubs who have strong and competitive starting XIs but lack the quality in depth to compete for titles on multiple fronts. While Villa are still firmly in the Champions League, where they sit eighth, and the European qualification race, it should be no surprise given Emery’s history, that their best form this season (three wins, and one surprising defeat by Belgium’s Club Brugge) has come in Europe.

Chelsea have inherited Villa’s place as the outsider contender trying to hang onto the coat-tails of the top three. They have shown signs of a return to the domestic elite seven seasons after they last lifted the Premier League trophy.

Eight of the current top 13 have finished in the Champions League places within the past five seasons. Even West Ham, now 14th and slightly off the pace (three points behind Manchester United in 13th), tasted European glory as the 2022-23 Europa Conference League winners.

Forest, relegation candidates in both completed seasons since their long-awaited return to the top flight, have provided the biggest early shock of 2024-25 with 19 points from their 11 games. Sitting in fifth — level on points with Arsenal and Chelsea — they are the only side to beat Liverpool in any competition so far, and did so at Anfield, and had won three games in a row before losing 3-1 against Newcastle United in their most recent fixture.

If they continued on their current 1.73 points per game trajectory, Forest would end with 65.6 points — which has been enough for a top-six finish in each season this decade.

Brighton & Hove Albion are also enjoying their best start to a Premier League season, level on points with Forest but sixth on goal difference. Fulham, one place below Brighton on 18 points, have also surprised many, as have Brentford (16) and Bournemouth (15), who are 11th and 12th.

Perhaps the side with the most potential, alongside Villa and Spurs, to put together a run of results to draw them closer to the top of the table are Manchester United, who are 13th but only four points adrift of fourth-placed Arsenal.

Having cut ties with Erik ten Hag in late October, they showed early signs of a significant turnaround in form under his assistant Ruud van Nistelrooy — picking up three wins and a draw over his spell as interim manager. They have now confirmed the arrival of Ruben Amorim as their new head coach.

Fresh from thrashing City 4-1 in the Champions League with Lisbon’s Sporting CP, Amorim took his first United training session on Monday. With a trip to one-win Ipswich Town this weekend followed by games at Old Trafford against Norway’s Bodo/Glimt in the Europa League and Everton, currently 16th, the Portuguese coach has the opportunity to put together a positive run of results in his opening few matches. It’ll be needed too, as United then face Arsenal, Forest and City in consecutive league matches (the first and third of them are away games).

At this point, United seem equally likely to start with a bang under Amorim as they are to struggle, which is precisely the point.

For the first time in a while, anything feels possible in the Premier League.

(Top photos: Getty Images)