“It’s very early,” Mikel Arteta told everyone who was willing to listen after Arsenal opened up a four-point lead at the Premier League summit on Sunday.
The Gunners boss will have little success dousing the growing flames of expectation after his two closest rivals for the title, in theory, both lost on the same weekend Arsenal battled out another miserly 1–0 win. However, there is some justification behind his caution.
In a curious quirk, none of the last six teams to top the Premier League table after the opening nine matches of a new season have gone on to finish in first place. Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool were the most recent side to shine brightest before and after Halloween back in the hazy days of 2019.
Yet, ’s supercomputer takes into consideration these statistic intricacies alongside a myriad of other numerical factors, churning through the data and spitting out the most likely outcome across the remainder of the campaign, again in theory.
Arsenal’s lead may look convincing in this autumnal light, but can Liverpool and Manchester City be written off just yet?
