Less is more (more or less)

Much has been made over this season being the closest Premier League season ever, with teams that are struggling to avoid the drop separated from as high as 10th place by the points of just one win.

It really is a case of one victory can spring you out of trouble yet one loss can drag you right back into it. However, it’s exactly that psychology why the league is so close this year and that nobody has managed to properly break away or equally nobody has really been cut adrift.

There are 126 possible points available in a season but only one team can actually achieve the maximum. This in turn means that, if every team won all their games except for those against the teams above them, then the team finishing bottom would, of course, have zero points, with six points separating each and every team going up the table.

Many experts have been saying that teams will need more points than usual to beat the drop this year but that is not necessarily the case.

A very similar scenario to this year’s league existed in 1927-28 when, by the end of the season, those relegated were only a single win away from finishing in 9th place. It is common to suggest that achieving 40 points will normally be enough to see you safe, but during that season, the bottom three (although only the bottom two would suffer relegation in those days) ended up with 37, 38 and 39 points respectively.

Whilst 37 is quite a high tally for the team at the bottom, 39 is fairly average for that last relegation spot. Throughout the 1990’s teams finishing third from bottom regularly achieved 40+ points, Crystal Palace reaching as high as 49 points in 1992-93. The 1992-93 season was relatively close too, with all three relegated teams exceeding 40 points and one victory between coming in at 13th or 20th (22 teams being in the league in those days). However, two years later, the Premier League reduced its numbers by two which meant that four less games are played over the season.

We are currently just about halfway through this season, having played 17 games so far, and the bottom three have 12, 13 and 18 points each. If we assume they do exactly the same in the second half of the season they will finish with approximately 24 to 36 points, give or take a point or two. That is no different to any other year so just because the season is shaping up to be a real nail-biter, your team will still probably find safety if it can reach the holy 40 point marker.

However, we might see a difference in points at the top of the table more clearly.

Since the era of the ‘big 4′ began about five years ago, we have become accustomed to the champions accomplishing around 90 points but they may have to settle for a little less this time around.

In the last four years, the title winners have achieved at least 27 wins, and as many as 29, out of 38 games played, but the current league leaders have only 11 wins from 17 played.

Whilst there are still two more games to go before the actual halfway mark, even by winning them, both the leaders would still be lagging behind those from the previous years.

It is still entirely possible for them to reach a similar number of victories, but they would have to improve their form for the second half of the season and if anything, both Chelsea and Liverpool (the current top two) appear to be slipping off the pace.

Consistency is the key in the Premier League, and it seems as though this is the one element missing from every team in the 2008-9 season. And the quicker it is found, the better for those concerned. However, consistency is very much based on confidence and once either is lost, the other begins to suffer.

Despite the fact that we are experiencing such a close-fought league this year, it is still very difficult to guess either how many points will be needed to stay in the top flight or how many will be required to win it.

It is not as simple as saying everybody is beating each other, so therefore they will all have more points on the board because they must equally all be losing against each other also (not to mention the possibility of drawing a game). There are still the same amount of maximum points available as in any other season. It is just harder to figure out who is going to earn them and when.

Certain matches are no longer forgone conclusions and it is exactly this unpredictability that makes the Premier League such an exciting place to be.