Thanks Prof.
The stand out for me with this table is still just how poorly Chelsea are doing. Despite winning this weekend, they remain on -10 in the APLT. To turn that around, to get the sort of points total you would expect to see from a team that won the league, they would need to win five par one matches.
So let's look at which Par One matches Chelsea still have.
West Ham (24/10/15)
Stoke City (7/11/15)
Spurs (29/11/15)
Manchester United (28/12/15)
Crystal Palace (3/1/16)
Arsenal (23/1/16)
Southampton (27/2/16)
Liverpool (12/3/16)
Swansea (9/4/16)
That's nine games, of which they would have to win five. And while it's easy enough to pick out five games you might reasonably expect a club like Chelsea to have a good chance to win, the APLT has shown over and over just how hard those games are to win consistently in reality.
The five "softest" Par 1s in that list by last season's league position would be: West Ham (12th) Palace (10th) Stoke (9th) Swansea (8th) Southampton (7th), those are the sort of fixtures that you look at in the APLT and think a draw is probably a good result, but there's a chance of a win. They aren't bankers by any stretch.
You also have to reckon on them not dropping any further points in their Par 3 games, or they would also need to start getting wins at Anfield, White Hart Lane and so on. Although title-winning sides might have a chance of winning games like those, teams that go into games like those needing a win to get back into the race probably aren't going to pull it off.
In order to win the league, the assumption is, you have to rack up something in the region of ninety points. For Chelsea, that is already looking extremely unlikely, and it's probable they would have to break some league records in the process. Winning streaks of more than ten games are still extremely rare, for any side, and for a team that has struggled as much as the current champions, it's hard to see where that kind of run is going to come from.
At the moment, they are on eleven points, from nine games. That would leave them needing almost eighty points from twenty nine games, at an average of over 2.7 points per game.
It's often said that you can't win the title before Christmas, but you can definitely lose it then. Chelsea are now in a situation, a quarter of the way through the fixture list, where they already need to be doing something extraordinary just to get back into the race. They can hope that Manchester City collapse, and that the eventual total points score is lower, but they are starting to depend on that hope as far as defending their title goes.
Some have questioned whether they can even crack the top four. And certainly, the APLT shows that too will be difficult for them. The assumption there is that a team that finishes with 71 points or more should have a good chance of making that fourth Champions League berth. This rather neatly corresponds with a drop of half a point per game on title winning form. While the APLT is less useful as a tool in working out which games you need to win to make that measure, it does provide a benchmark.
Chelsea are on -10. The 71 point line finishes on -19 at the end of the season. In other words, Chelsea have to play within nine points of Championship winning form from here on to get into the top four. If they revert to type from here on in, they should realistically make that target comfortably. They need to lose three more Par 3 matches, draw five Par 3 matches, or variations on that to drop below a fourth place target. Alternatively, they could drop single points in Par 1 matches, such as those at Anfield, Old Trafford and the Emirates, although that is less costly.
If they are in trouble at the end of the year, of course, you can expect the chequebook to come out and for them to try and buy their way back into contention. With the riches available from Champions League participation at stake, and a very large wage bill to cover, it would be no surprise to see them try and break their club transfer record in an attempt to keep that place.
But, while we're about it, let's have a look at their most difficult remaining Par 3 matches, and see if they really do have cause for confidence.
Still to visit Stamford Bridge this season are "Par 1" clubs:
Manchester City, Manchester United, Tottenham, Liverpool, Stoke, Everton, West Brom and West Ham.
(Of course, playing at home will make these Par 3 matches, I'm just looking at the "strongest" visitors from an APLT perspective.)
If you ask me if they will finish in the top four, I still think they probably will, but it is very unusual to see Chelsea struggling this badly this early, and they need to turn their form around very quickly or they could well be left behind.
