League Dominance?

Lots of tosh has been spoken recently about teams dominating English league football with some claiming that there’s ‘never’ been a time when a team has dominated as much as Manchester City do today. Ignoring the fact that the League campaign is not over yet and will go to the final day (so that’s a nonsense for a start) I decided to pull together a few facts that may be useful. They’re certainly relevant.

So, first of all, the question of whether Manchester City is the first to dominate in a way no other has before (again the season isn’t over and it could go either way yet, so ‘dominate’ is not something I believe anyway!)… City have currently won 3 League titles in a row. A feat that has been done several times before, most recently (before City) by Manchester United in 2006-09.

Ah, but City have won 5 out of 6 titles they say… Yes, but United won 7 out of the first 9 Premier Leagues and were runners up in the other 2. Liverpool achieved the same 7 out of 9 League titles in the 1970s and early 80s. We can’t predict the future of course but City have never managed seven titles in 9 seasons. In fact if City do win the League the stats will show it’s 7 in 11 seasons and at present it’s 7 titles in 12 seasons. So that means two other clubs have had longer spells as ‘dominant’ clubs using the language and phraseology that those criticising the reigning Champions usually use.

One of the other criticisms that’s thrown City’s way is about the Premier League being ‘boring’ because it’s a ‘foregone conclusion’ and ‘other teams have to be perfect’ to finish above City. Well, to be the best you have to beat the best but in terms of the League being ‘boring’ and a ‘foregone conclusion’ then the stats in terms of points gaps say otherwise.

Sure, City’s incredible 2017-18 season when they amassed 100 points was one in which the Blues ran away with the title, but it was also a rarity. City won the League by bettering second place by an astounding 19 points but, wait a minute, that amazing gap is only 1 point  more than the (18 point) gap between 2020 champions Liverpool and second placed City (at a time when City are supposed to be the dominant team!). Not only that but United had an 18 point gap between them and second placed Arsenal in 2000.

Worth noting too that in the 31 season history of the Premier League 14 runners-up teams bettered 2^nd placed United’s points tally in 2017-18 when City achieved their 100 points. Surely, no title winning team can be blamed if the runners-up have worse results than in more than 45% of the competition’s seasonal history?

What about the ‘foregone conclusion’ and ‘boring’ line? Well, I suppose it can be argued it’s boring if the League is won many, many weeks before the end of the season. Using that logic it should also be ‘not boring’ if it goes down to the last game (like this season) or the last week (could be 2 or 3 games depending on fixture congestion). So I’ve had a look at how many seasons have finished with 3 points or less separating the top two teams. This shows that there have been 9 seasons when this has been the case. Guess what? 4 of those were seasons when City have won the Premier League (2 United, 1 Arsenal, Blackburn & Chelsea).

This means that 57% of all City’s Premier League title wins have been by less than 3 points! For United (13 PL titles) the figure is 15%; Arsenal (3 PL) it’s 33% and Chelsea (5 PL) is 20%.  Four of United’s PL titles have been won by 10 points or more.

Of course, title races can be exciting when teams win the League by ten points or more, but the argument many put across is that it’s boring when one team walks away with it. Surely there’s less chance of that happening when a team wins the title by less than 3 points?

There are lots of statistics that could be posted and, to be frank, they never actually tell the story of a season. How many times do we see possession stats that are in one club’s favour but the other team is actually winning? Nevertheless, when people try to suggest a season is boring because a club (any club) is running away with it then the stats can help show that something is not true. Similarly, when it comes to dominant football clubs – yes, there are eras of dominance by certain clubs and Manchester City certainly are a dominant club at the moment – we must not be fooled into thinking that a situation has NEVER happened before when it so obviously has (and other clubs may actually have been more dominant!).

Ah well! Football, hey? If only people actually looked at history more before jumping to conclusions.

How To Subscribe