As promised, it’s time to look at this season’s performance in the Premiership in comparison with last season. A reminder of the two methods:-

1. Chronological – i.e. compare the first 10 games this season with the first 10 last season, regardless of opponent.
2. Apple for Apples – compare identical fixtures from last season, regardless of when they occurred. Since 3 teams are relegated and 3 promoted each year this isn’t possible across all 19 opponents so I’ve made the following translations – West Brom = Birmingham City, Middlesbrough = Burnley and Newcastle = Wolves.

After the first 10 games last season, we had 20 points compared with 18 this season. However, by comparing identical fixtures, as closely as possible, we find that we’re effectively 3 points ahead of last season’s performance:-

If you’re interested, here’s how Villa did from the first 10 games in recent seasons:-

• 2002/03 – 10 points
• 2003/04 – 10 points
• 2004/05 – 14 points
• 2005/06 – 9 points
• 2006/07 – 15 points
• 2007/08 – 15 points
• 2008/09 – 20 points
• 2009/10 – 18 points

The average from the last 4 seasons is 17 points, the average from the preceding 4 seasons is 10.75.