There is an understanding that a ranking only really “takes shape” once clubs have played 10 of their allocated matches in that season’s competition.

It’s an age-old and arbitrary threshold we’ve created for ourselves, but it has benefits.

First of all, it’s a nice round number. Second, it’s… double digits.

It’s also 26.3158 percent of the way through a 38-match Premier League season, which makes it strange to conclude much about the final positions each team will occupy when the music stops at the end of May.

In other walks of life we ​​would not use this approach.

For example, if you were to leave a basketball game after the first quarter, would you be certain of the winning team? If you saw 26 percent of a movie in the theater and then went home, could you reliably predict its ending?

There will be many more twists and turns in the 2024-2025 season between now and those 10 full-time whistles across the country on Sunday, May 25.

Overall, however, there is statistical evidence that the peloton is unlikely to shift dramatically from its current rankings over the next seven months. Since the first 20-team Premier League season in 1995-96, more than a third of teams (38 percent) have moved just one place – or stayed in the same position – when comparing matchweek 10 with the final standings.

Perhaps we naturally trust the rankings after ten games, because deep down we know how much it reveals about what lies ahead.

With nine matches played each, the above competition rankings could have been predicted in the summer.

We can talk about some clubs having easier opening games than others, but last season’s final top four are already back in their familiar places in the Champions League. On the other hand, Leicester City’s recent results have seen them move out of the relegation zone, but fellow promoted sides Ipswich Town and Southampton are in the bottom three. The promoted teams kept the competition afloat after ten games last season – and all three were relegated.

Leicester started the 2000-2001 season well, but that didn’t last long as they finished thirteenth (David Jones – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images)

Every fan wants to keep their respective dreams alive throughout the season, but what does the data say about how much the table varies over time?

A 2019 study looked at match data from 1995 to 2017 and concluded that the team top of the Premier League after matchweek 10 had a 77.3 percent chance of finishing in the top three. So fans of Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal, you might as well start planning those 2025-2026 midweek European trips now.

The notable outlier of last season was Tottenham Hotspur. Ange Postecoglou’s men were at the top with eight wins and two draws after ten games, but that near-perfect record did not last. They lost three consecutive games in November and finished in fifth place.

Nevertheless, a closer look at the findings from that 2019 study has shown how stable the broader rankings become after ten weeks of competition.

In the Premier League, the researchers found that 77 percent of the statistical variance in the final rankings was explained by match week 10. By match week 20, this had risen to 87 percent. And after competition week 30 this was 94 percent.

In other words: if you look at the rankings as early as November, you will get a good indication of the final positions that each club will take.

We can look at this ourselves by analyzing the relationship between the divisional rankings after each match week and the final rankings in the competition during the 2023-2024 season.

For those data people who are interested, this is calculated using a correlation analysis (Spearman’s rank), which produces a value (between -1 and +1) based on the strength of the relationship between the sets of data points.

A higher ‘r-value’ indicates a stronger relationship.

As we follow this each match week we see the strength of the relationship increasing, but notice how stable things look after just a quarter of the way through the campaign.

Let’s be clear: the smaller changes in league positions can be the most crucial. The difference between a team finishing in first or second place is not significant mathematically, but immeasurable in its significance. We should still see the drama of the title races, European victories and relegation battles on the final day, but the wider analysis of the league standings shows that a decent forecast can be made early on.

The implications of this are interesting.

While it may seem like club owners may seem a little overzealous in parting ways with struggling managers before the Christmas period, the data suggests that things are unlikely to change dramatically in the coming weeks and months.

We have come to accept the chaotic desperation that radiates from clubs when you sack a manager, but the message is simple: there are mathematical advantages to taking action sooner rather than later.

While the table configuration may be less shaky than some might think, there will continue to be memorable examples of teams experiencing a significant drop (or a significant increase) after ten games.

Looking at the Premier League era, a number of seasons stand out.

Last season, Tottenham’s aforementioned slump was most noticeable at the top of the table, but there was also a notable swing in another part of London.

Brentford sat mid-table before a drop in form saw them settle for a disappointing 16th place. After matchweek 10, neighbors Chelsea were just below them, but after a strong end to the season, Mauricio Pochettino’s side rose five places to qualify for the UEFA Conference League.

For those with longer memories, think back to 2008-09, when newly promoted Hull City won six of their first nine games – including away games against Arsenal and Spurs – and found themselves ‘pushing for a European spot’… only to get two win. of their remaining 29 and scraped survival, finishing one point above the relegation zone in 17th place.

Meanwhile, Tottenham were bottom after matchweek 10, after the worst start in their history (two points from eight games). Harry Redknapp replaced Juande Ramos as manager at the end of October and pushed them to eighth place – the biggest change of the Premier League era.

The fact is you probably Doing remember these examples because they are so unusual.

Here’s another one, from 2005-06.

Charlton Athletic fans need no reminder of their Darren Bent-inspired early ‘title push’, which saw them win their first four league games, only to drop to a more realistic 13th position after the final round of fixtures the following May. It is a nosedive rivaled only by Hull’s 2008/09 season in the 32-year Premier League era, with no team falling more than eleven places.

Similarly, a pre-Sheikh Mansour Manchester City looked set for a strong finish in the top half in the autumn of 2005, before Stuart Pearce’s side dropped eight places to 15th by the end of the season.

These fun quirks from yesteryear highlight the caveats that need to be considered in the broader context of a season’s final rankings.

The Athletics has previously analyzed the impact of match difficulty on table skew in the early part of a season, and a favorable run of matches can look more pronounced than the quality of a side suggests. Likewise, a team’s over- or under-performance can similarly misrepresent actual performance. Over an entire season, you would expect (though not guaranteed) that any quirks from the first few games would even out.

Yet the numbers don’t lie. Although teams have not yet played all 19 opponents once, evidence shows that much of the variance in the rankings can be explained after just a quarter of the season.

This means that fourteenth-placed Manchester United still has a lot of work to do.

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)