English League 2005-06: End of Season Review

redspider

English League 2005-2006
End of Season Review

The final league standings at the end of this season compared with last season are as follows:

2004/2005       2005/2006
Chelsea    95   Chelsea    91	
Arsenal    83   Man U      83	
Man U      77   Liverpool  82	
Everton    61   Arsenal    67	

Liverpool  58   Tottenham  65	
Bolton     58   Blackburn  63	
Middlesb   55   Newcastle  58	
Man C      52   Bolton     56	
Tottenham  52   West Ham   55	
A Villa    47   Wigan      51	
Charlton   46   Everton    50	
Birmingham 45   Fulham     48	
Fulham     44   Charlton   47	
Newcastle  44   Middles    45	
Blackburn  42   Man C      43	
Portsmouth 39   A Villa    42	
West Brom  34   Portsmouth 38	

C Palace   33   Birmingham 34	
Norwich    33   West Brom  30	
Southamptn 32   Sunderland 15	

Chelsea are more or less at the same level, Man Utd gain a place and some points. Liverpool have gained substantially in points and a couple of positions. Arsenal have dropped a couple of positions and have lost a lot of points but
have done enough to qualify for the CL.

The change in form between this season and last is as follows:

Liverpool  +24
Blackburn  +21
Newcastle  +14
Tottenham  +13
Man U       +6
Fulham      +4
Charlton    +1	
Portsmouth  -1	
Bolton      -2	
Chelsea     -4	
West Brom   -4	
Aston Villa -5	
Man C       -9	
Middles    -10	
Birmingham -11	
Everton    -11	
Arsenal    -16

Yes, its hard to believe but Liverpool are the most improved team! The fans of the clubs at the top of this comparison table will feel that there has been a marked improvement in their club and will be satisfied. Those at the lower end will feel that its a bad season, although for Arsenal who have had the biggest change in form they have ridden the downturn with a good performance in the CL and having done just enough to get a CL place.

Blackburn with a high finish and a qualification for the Uefa Cup have had their best season in a long time. The Bellamy factor cannot be discounted.

Here is the table that shows the form of each club in each quarter of the season:

Club       1-10               11-20             21-30             31-38
Chelsea    28     Liverpool   28    Everton     23    Liverpool   24
Wigan      22     Chelsea     27    Man U       22    Newcastle   19
Charlton   19     Man U       26    Chelsea     20    Arsenal     17
Tottenham  19     Tottenham   18    Blackburn   19    Man U       17
Man U      18     Arsenal     17    West Ham    19    Chelsea     16
Arsenal    17     Blackburn   16    Arsenal     16    Fulham      16
Bolton     17     Bolton      16    Bolton      15    Blackburn   14
Man C      17     Newcastle   14    Middlesboro 15    Portsmouth  14
Liverpool  16     Aston Villa 13    Tottenham   15    Tottenham   13
West Ham   15     Everton     13    Liverpool   14    Birmingham  10
Blackburn  14     Wigan       12    Newcastle   13    West Ham    10
Middles    12     Fulham      11    Aston Villa 12    Aston Villa  8
Newcastle  12     Man C       11    Fulham      12    Bolton       8
Aston Villa 9     West Brom   11    Man C       12    Charlton     8
Fulham      9     West Ham    11    Wigan       12    Middlesboro  8
West Brom   8     Birmingham  10    Charlton    11    Everton      7
Everton     7     Middlesboro 10    Birmingham   8    Sunderland   5
Portsmouth  7     Portsmouth  10    West Brom    8    Wigan        5
Birmingham  6     Charlton     9    Portsmouth   7    Man C        3
Sunderland  5     Sunderland   1    Sunderland   4    West Brom    3	

Whats clear is that Chelsea have been in a slump for the 2nd half of the season. Their pts tallies were 28-27-20-16. However, I dont expect their current form to continue and do expect it to be business as usual at the start of next season.

Much was made of Man U's poor start and that being the only difference between them and Chelsea. However, Man U's 2nd half of the season wasn't great though as it just matched Chelsea's "slump", overall: 18-26-22-17.

Liverpool, whilst having a major improvement over last season are still blowing hot and cold and their form has been erratic, ranging down as low as 14 pts, overall 16-28-14-24. That is not a clear indication of a good finish next season.

Arsenal were consistently average with a 17-17-16-17 season, which was
enough to pip Spurs' 19-18-15-13 season. Spurs have only themselves to
blame for their own dip in form towards the latter end, but it was so close between them and Arsenal that the food poisoning episode could have been the difference.

Blackburn were consistently good (for them): 14-16-19-14

Other points to note: Wigan ended the season on relegation form. They
could get relegated next season as they had a 22-12-12-5 season. Charlton likewise are in a slump: 19-9-11-8
Man C are also in a slump: 17-11-12-3
Bolton died at the end when a good run was needed: 17-16-15-8
And of course Harry Houdini did it for Portsmouth: 7-10-7-14


redspider

Pepe LeFrits

Good post. Wigan's drop in form is somewhat alarming for them and they'll need to get in some good players in the summer to replace Bullard and probably Chimbonda.

Arsenal need goals from midfield, particularly away from home. If a free-scoring left-winger or powerful goal-scoring midfielder (Baptista or the likes) is signed, they should fare better next season.

Provided Henry stays, that is. If not, Wenger needs to find a top striker and fast. Fortunately with 4th place and the money from the CL run, it should be possible to get one if required.

Necronomicon

Interesting read. I always think Charlton are a team that could find themselves in a relegation fight, given the way they nose-dive at the latter stage of every season. New manager now, if they don't get it right they might be one of the teams down there next season. Wigan, as you said, also finishing on alarming form and on top of that set to lose two of their star players.

mike65

Ah stats!

Redspider you may recall I talked about liverpools season being poor/good/poor and requiring a good finish which they'd achieve, its always nice to be
right! They did better than I predicted on the points per game average. I said they'd get 2 its actually 2.16 and they still finish third!

Blackburns season must have surpised even Mark Hughes while Newcastle can only imagine what they'd have done if Souness got binned earlier. Wigan finished almost exactly were I predicted them to last October there was no way they'd keep the early season form going. Which does'nt bode to well for them next time out.

Looking at the tables, its clear that this season gone was tougher, it seems that you needed around 4 points more to be roughly in the same place in the league vis-a-vis 2004/05.

Mike.

OTliddy

mike65 wrote:

it seems that you needed around 4 points more to be roughly in the same place in the league vis-a-vis 2004/05.

Because Sunderland gave most teams 6 points, and the rest 4 or 3:D

redspider

mike65 wrote:

Redspider you may recall I talked about liverpools season being poor/good/poor and requiring a good finish which they'd achieve, its always nice to be right!

I'm glad you were right for once Mike ! ;-)

Yeah, I agree that Newcastle have done better once they got rid of Souness. He was a good player but he has now proven (N times) that he is not a good enough manager for the top-flight.

OTliddy> Because Sunderland gave most teams 6 points, and the rest 4 or 3

Yes, I agree with that. Sunderlands low points tally effectively adds nearly 6 pts to each team, although some teams didnt get that lift. Take that away from Liverpool's 82 and say add 3 pts results in 79, still a good finish.

Necromomicon> I always think Charlton are a team that could find themselves in a relegation fight, given the way they nose-dive at the latter stage of every season. New manager now, if they don't get it right they might be one of the teams down there next season.

Agreed. I think they would be a good bet to go down, although I am not a betting tipster and it will depend on who they sell (Bent?) or buy.


Pepe LeFrits> Wigan's drop in form is somewhat alarming
Arsenal ....


Yes, Wigan's form is just about relegation battle now, and next season the honeymoon period will be over. They may survive it but I expect them to be in the battle.

Arsenal are hard to judge. If Henry is there, they could challenge for 2nd and the title, depending on what Chelsea are doing against the likes of Wigan, Charlton, etc. If Henry is not there, they should still make the top-4 given the quality of the squad and the money as you pointed out from this year's CL run.

redspider

Lex Luthor

Arsenal next season I will yet reserve judgement moving to a new stadium. I think Man City took a season or 2 to settle into their bigger stadium initially.

Xterminator

Just a word on Chelsea's 'dip'.

The points accumlated tell a story, but only in context.They had the league won by christmas, with a huge lead, so they concentrated on Europe and the cups (not to any great success) and hence the 'slump'.

To emphasise that, who thinks they would have lost those last 2 games of the season, if winning the league depended on it?

I'm a Blackburn fan, and even i dont think we would have taken them, under different circumstances.

X

redspider

Xterminator wrote:

Just a word on Chelsea's 'dip'.
The points accumlated tell a story, but only in context.They had the league won by christmas, with a huge lead, so they concentrated on Europe and the cups (not to any great success) and hence the 'slump'.
To emphasise that, who thinks they would have lost those last 2 games of the season, if winning the league depended on it?

You're definitely right about the last 2 games. Sometimes you see teams that have won the league and then run out in the sunshine and win all their remaining games easily. And sometimes you see teams lose the bulk of the remainder, as what happened with Chelsea.

But I think Chelsea did have a mini-slump and may be still in it. A summer is a long time in football though and no doubt Chelsea next season will have personnel changes, so who knows how they will start next season. But they didnt have the league won by Xmas, although we all thought they would win it, and Chelsea with such a large squad have enough personnel to concentrate on all competitions.

The dip is relative, and it will take a dip as 'bad' for the whole season to allow the likes of Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal to have a decent challenge.

redspider

Rikand

Delighted with Blackburns finish, though i thought we would have the biggest improvement over the season, damn liverpool anyways!

Lemlin

Considering the outlay of cash Liverpool spent, compared to Blackburn Ricky, I think we definitely did better. Hughes spent 5 million and took Blackburn from 15th to 6th.

Redspider talks about the Bellamy factor but it has to be remembered that, while he won us a few games, Bellamy only started 22 out of 38 games this season. The team's performance had alot more to do with Hughes getting the best out of players like Reid, Savage, MGP, Friedel and Nelsen.

And no lads, this isn't me being a Liverpool-hater. I'm just stating the facts as I see them, and perhaps I am being biased toward the club I support.

p.pete

Lemlin wrote:

Considering the outlay of cash Liverpool spent, compared to Blackburn Ricky, I think we definitely did better. Hughes spent 5 million and took Blackburn from 15th to 6th.

Redspider talks about the Bellamy factor but it has to be remembered that, while he won us a few games, Bellamy only started 22 out of 38 games this season. The team's performance had alot more to do with Hughes getting the best out of players like Reid, Savage, MGP, Friedel and Nelsen.

And no lads, this isn't me being a Liverpool-hater. I'm just stating the facts as I see them, and perhaps I am being biased toward the club I support.

Nah, that's fair enough Lemlin. Hughes has done an exceptional job with Blackburn - they don't have the backing they had in the 90's and they've done really well with their achievements this year.

I'm delighted with Liverpool as well, though the difference between finishing 5th and 3rd may be less noticeable from last year to this.

redspider

Lemlin wrote:

Considering the outlay of cash Liverpool spent, compared to Blackburn Ricky, I think we definitely did better.

Redspider talks about the Bellamy factor but it has to be remembered that, while he won us a few games, Bellamy only started 22 out of 38 games this season. The team's performance had alot more to do with Hughes getting the best out of players like Reid, Savage, MGP, Friedel and Nelsen.

I dont think its easy to compare the improvements of each club and say which one is better. Purchase spending isn't the only monetary measure to consider, as spending on salary must also be considered. Also, Liverpool being in 5th place the season before, its impossible to gain 9 places and it takes more resources to gain places at the top the closer you get to it. Consider Chelsea are spending 240m pa, and Man Utd also spend a lot, Liverpool did quite well to beat their nearest financial rivals, and that was Arsenal, quite comfortably too.

Bellamy was not the sole factor for the improvement, but I think most Blackburn fans and neutrals would agree that he was a factor. Reid did very well in a central role, and for Ireland its a good sign as Staunton should play him there.

redspider