Today's defeat at Leicester puts Manchester United on -10 in the APLT.
I've mentioned before how they have been given a very easy start to the season, with a incredible run of nine consecutive par 3 games, comfortably the longest such run of any team in the APLT. If we look at little closer at this run of fixtures, it gets even worse.
Swansea (h)
Sunderland (a)
Burnley (a)
QPR (h)
Leicester (a)
Are the games they have played so far.
Swansea are a good side, and the reverse fixture is a Par 1. The APLT insists on victory in nearly all home games though, and good as they are, the Swans are not a team you would expect to be competing with the big 7 come the end of the year. Losing this game is a very poor result, a 3 point drop.
A visit to Sunderland was a par 1 result in 2012-13, but a lot has changed since then and the draw can only be seen as a disappointment for a team with pretentions to a top four place.
Newly promoted sides are automatically Par 3 games, and usually this is justified by their final league positions at the end of the season. Burnley have only 3 points on the table after 5 games, and 1 of them came from the visit of the once mighty Manchester United.
By an odd coincidence, United's next fixture was also a newly promoted side, and the 3 points were duly collected at home against QPR.
By an even more odd coincidence, and frankly this is getting deeply suspicious, the third of the new boys, Leicester, rounded off the early fixtures. This time United slipped up again, and found themselves on the end of a five goal annihilation, having been 3-1 ahead at one point.
It doesn't matter what order you play your games in in principle, you need to go out and win them whenever you play, but there are serious consequences in the APLT for failing to capitalise on such an incredible gift from the fixture committee.
-10 after just five games is an exceptionally poor return for anyone in the APLT. Looking back over the last few seasons, it stands out just how bad this looks.
In 11-12, the first team to drop below the 10 point line were Newcastle United. It took them until match 15 to do it, and eventually they ended the season on 65 points, in 5th place.
In 12-13, Liverpool were the first to fall below the 10 point mark. It happened after match 10, and the reds eventually ended the season on 61 pts, which was 7th in the table.
Last season, it was Tottenham who had the dubious honour of being first through the ten point trap door. They held out until match 12, and eventually finished the season on 69 pts, in 6th place.
For Manchester United to have already sunk this low is really astonishing, and something that the real table doesn't emphasise at all. They are already as far off the pace as we were after twice as many games when we ultimately finished 7th!
So can we count them out entirely? Should they be expunged from the APLT?
Before we get too carried away and start trying to take attention away from our own poor results recently, maybe we need to look at this the other way around. United still have all 12 of their par 1 matches to play. While those fixtures are more difficult, they also represent a chance for them to make points up. Winning just five of those twleve games puts them right back on target to win the league. And they are bound to improve on the pitch at some point, right?
Also, the fact that they have played no Par 1 games, means that every draw or loss so far has had maximum impact on their APLT total. Liverpool's loss to West Ham yesterday, while a bad result, only cost the reds a single APLT point. In fact, even if Liverpool had lost every game so far, we'd only be on -9. In the final analysis, it doesn't matter where your points come from to actually win the league, but the APLT model represents a way to do it by winning games that should be easier.
The trouble for them is that they still need to play another four Par 3 games before they can possibly put themselves in a better position. They need to beat West Ham, Everton and Chelsea at home and West Brom away just to stay on -10. And if they somehow manage that, their big chance to get back to -8 comes at the Etihad.
Come the end of the season, they will really need to be flying. Their run in is a gauntlet that would concern anybody. (Par 1 games in bold.)
Spurs (h)
Liverpool (a) Villa (h) Man City (h)
Chelsea (a)
Everton (a) West Brom (h)
Palace (a) Arsenal (h) Hull (a)
Now I don't know about you, but I'd want a LOT of points on the board already before going on a run like that.
