As expected (see previous blog post at http://sporteconomist.blogspot.com/2011/04/most-competitive-english-premier-league.html), this year’s premiership proved to be one of the most competitive seasons since the competition began. The previous post showed that the season was on course to be the most competitive since 1997-98. In the end it went one better, being the most competitive season since 1996-97 and the third most competitive season since the premierships came into being in 1992-93.
The chart below shows the competitive level of the premiership since its inception in 1992-93. Building on the analysis of footballeconomics.com I’ve created a competitiveness index, which is equal to one minus the standard deviation of the proportion of points achieved by each team. This is a statistical technique which allows us to analyse the variation in the league. A perfectly competitive league would produce a competitive value of 1, as all teams would end up winning an equal proportion of the points on offer.
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As can be seen from the chart, the long term trend has been for a decline in the competitiveness of the premier league ever since its inception, but this season has bucked the trend.
In 2004-05, Liverpool finished 37 points off the leaders, qualified for Europe in 5th place, and won the European Cup. This season Birmingham and Blackpool finished 41 points off the leaders and were relegated. So tight was the spread of points this season that just a couple of wins in a row could make a huge difference to a team’s season. Just 8 weeks ago, Aston Villa fans were unfurling a banner calling for Gerard Houllier to be sacked as they almost fell into a relegation battle. In the end they finished a creditable 9th in the league. Roy Hodgson’s Liverpool occupied the relegation places for some of the season, only for Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool to finish in 6th place, one place better than Rafa Benitez achieved last season. Meanwhile, many were rightly praising the performance of Owen Coyle’s Bolton Wanderers as they were riding high in the table earlier in the season, but they eventually ended up in 14th place. For all these reasons and more, many football pundits have argued that this season was the most exciting and competitive league for a long time, and it’s interesting to see that the stats above endorse this view.
There are reasons to be optimistic, e.g. with the new UEFA financial fair play rules, that this year’s increased competitiveness may be a sign of things to come, and if so we can look forward to a much more competitive league in future years. At the top of the table, the top four seems to be moving towards a top six, with Liverpool strengthening, and Spurs proving that last season’s fourth place was no fluke with a fifth placed finish this time. Similarly, looking at the teams coming up from the Championship, there are no obvious whipping boys next year, and the battle against relegation is likely to be as fierce as ever. Time will tell whether this turns out to be true, or whether like 2003-04 (itself the most competitive for 8 years at the time) this is just a short term blip in the long term decline
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