Here’s a little statistical curiosity which helps flesh out the picture I’ve been painting recently of relativity. Go back to February 10th and take a look at the table which shows the records of teams against clubs in the top half of the table only. We were second behind Chelsea ahead of our game against Man Utd, which was a draw and left our position intact.

Here’s the same table at the end of the season:-

No prizes for spotting that we slipped from 2nd to 8th in the final table, but what else do you notice? Anything strange?

Well done if you noticed that we have less points after 18 games that we did after 13. How can that be? It’s quite simple; the teams that make up the top and bottom of the table are fluid and as one team moves up, another goes down, and that recalculates how the table is formed.

Of course, it’s the same for all the teams, but the point is that our record has not changed, it’s simply a case of how it compares to those around us. In other words, it’s relative.

Bottom Half

I didn’t include the table sorted by record against bottom half teams in February, but as I recall we were 11th. So, 2nd against top half teams and 11th against bottom half teams. Obvious what needs to be fixed, no?

Well, check out the final team focusing on the record against teams in the bottom half only:-

In the end then, which is the only time one can make an effective judgement, it wasn’t the bottom half of the table which did for us.

Ironically, the loss against Blackburn in the final game lifted them from the bottom to the top half of the table and therefore reduced our record against top half teams. We lost both league games against Blackburn, but we took 4 points from Stoke who Blackburn replaced.

Ultimately, this is interesting, but there’s only one table that matters. However, as another part of the season review series, I will take a look at our record for this season and historically against the other 7 teams we’re competing against. It’s entirely possible, although unlikely, that we could all have identical records against the 12 teams below us and what will then determine where we finish is our record against each other.