I’ve calculated a massive league table sorted in descending order of points per game, followed by goal difference and then goals scored. To keep things as fair as possible, cup and play-off games have been excluded. Clubs who were promoted or relegated in the summer have had their records from both divisions combined, including National League games for the promoted clubs in League Two.

Points deductions haven’t been included as they apply to a specific season (so it’d be tricky to apportion them) and in any case they would detract from the purpose of comparing performances.

Without further ado, here's the full table:

Man City have narrowly edged out 2024 champions Arsenal to claim top spot. Despite earning 3 fewer points, they did so over 2 fewer games for a marginally better points per game average.

City’s attack stood out more than their defence: they were the only team to score more than 2 goals per game (2.24) and along with the Gunners they were one of two sides with a goal difference per game above 1 (+1.30 to Arsenal’s +1.05).

The best-performing defence was that of Barnet in League Two, which shipped just 34 goals in 45 games (0.76 per game).

At the other end of the table, Wolves’ dire recent form has dropped them below Shrewsbury into last place. Scoring goals was their biggest problem this year: the Shrews were the only team with an inferior attacking record (0.83 per game to Wolves’ 0.89), while 3 clubs (Crawley, Bristol Rovers and Southampton) fared worse defensively.

Gillingham have ended the year with seven draws in their last eight matches, which means that over half of their 2025 league games were tied (24 out of 47). Contrast that with Fulham fans who only witnessed three league draws this year.

Finally, if Grimsby had beaten Shrewsbury 2-0 instead of 1-0 on Monday night then they would have ended the year with a perfectly symmetrical record: they won and lost the same number of games, but conceded one more goal than they scored.

This email doubles as a test for the posting format I’m looking to adopt this season. To avoid clogging inboxes with a separate email for everything I create, the plan is to send out fewer, chunkier updates with embedded links to individual pages.

Table topping droughts

Starting off with something new, when following the live scores on the Championship’s opening weekend I noticed that Stoke were on course to finish the day at the top of the table. Having done a bit of work on results data over the summer, I remembered that it had been a while since they’d last managed this and was able to churn out some analysis on how their drought compared with others.

As it turns out, their run of over 17 years since ending the day at the top of a table was the longest of any current team in the top four English divisions. While I was at it, I also looked at the longest stretch of time since each club had last finished a day at the bottom of a league table, which threw up some even crazier numbers.

Squad retention

I’ve been refreshing the squad retention charts for English teams on a regular basis. These quantify how much each squad has changed by calculating the percentage of last season’s league minutes accumulated by players still at the club.

There have been some notable shifts as we head towards the final two weeks of the window, with 14 teams now having lost at least half of last season’s minutes and one having lost eight of their most-used XI.

As the English versions have proven so popular, I ran the same analysis for other major European leagues: specifically the top tiers of Italy, Spain, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Portugal.

The Portuguese league includes the highest level of churn I’ve ever seen in over a decade of running this analysis: newly-promoted Alverca only have one player left from last season’s first-team squad. Everyone else who stepped on the pitch for them in a league match is gone.

Premier League fixtures

Finally, I went back and updated the Premier League fixture difficulty analysis that I had originally published on the day they were released. This was to factor in how the odds have moved in response to transfers, pre-season form etc (but also for selfish reasons as I make last-minute tweaks to my FPL team).

There were fewer shifts in the rankings than I expected. Newcastle have drifted a couple of places due to the Alexander Isak saga and their recruitment difficulties, but nobody else has moved more than one place. However, the distribution of odds had changed quite a bit, to the extent that I had to adjust the groupings.

Looking ahead

Once a meaningful amount of data has accumulated - probably in mid-to-late September - I’ll be able to switch on a lot more of the regular visualisations, get a posting rhythm going and build the site / newsletter out a bit more.

In the meantime things will be a bit more ad hoc, but there will definitely be a few new things appearing alongside further updates to the squad retention graphics.

I'm always happy to hear suggestions, so please feel free to reach out in the comments or via social media (I’m most active on BlueSky, followed by X).

To say it’s a bit early to be analysing league tables is an understatement, but the chaotic early weeks of a season are the most likely to see teams in unusual positions. Unfortunately in Stoke’s case, leading the league definitely falls under that definition. Had the latter game turned out differently and kept them at the summit, it would have been the first time they’d ended a day at the top of a league table in over 17 years.

By my calculations, the last time they managed this was on 27th April 2008, prior to finishing 2nd and securing promotion to the Premier League under Tony Pulis. Since then every other club among the 92 currently in the top flight and EFL has managed this feat.

The chart below tracks Stoke’s league position on every day of an active season since then. Their 10-year stay in the top flight never saw them place higher than 3rd and since their return to the EFL some fast starts have yielded a few 2nd places, but top spot continues to elude them.

Stoke may get another chance to end their drought as their next fixture is against crisis club Sheffield Wednesday (assuming it goes ahead). If they prevail then their unwanted mantle will pass to Colchester, who last topped a division over a year later on 21st August 2009 after winning their first three games.

Here’s the current top 20, which includes seven other teams who have gone at least a decade without ending a single day at the top of a league table.

Cardiff (13th October 2017) and Luton (2nd August 2019) have removed themselves from this list recently, taking advantage of playing early fixtures to top League One.

When we flip this around and look at how long each team has gone since finishing a day at the bottom of a table, things get much more interesting. It’s been almost 39 years since Chelsea finished a day at the bottom of a league table, back in December 1986. Here’s their chart, which you’ll need to load in a new tab to view properly.

Despite recovering in the second half of the season, they were relegated the following year. However they never sat at the bottom of the table, finishing 18th out of 21 teams and being demoted via playoffs.

Here’s the full top 20, although it’s out of 90 teams as I wasn’t able to find reliable historical data for Harrogate and Salford (given their respective rises from below the National League).

After Chelsea, both Manchester City (23 years) and Brighton (19) have managed to avoid grazing the foot of a league table since they were last relegated.

The same applies to Mansfield, who haven’t ended a day at the bottom of a division since their demotion to the National League over 17 years ago. However, their run could be coming to an end after opening their 2025-26 campaign with back-to-back defeats.

You may have noticed that two of the Premier League’s traditional “big six” are missing from this list. Arsenal were last bottom of the league on 10th September 2021 after losing their first three games without scoring a goal. Almost a year later it was Manchester United’s turn, after losing their opening two fixtures by a combined 1-6 scoreline.

Seeing as the Premier League and EFL squad retention graphics have been so popular, I’ve also run them for some of the other big European leagues to see how their numbers compare.

If you haven’t seen these before, there’s a full explanation in the post linked above, but they’re quite easy to follow. Each club’s minutes from last season have been divided up into segments by player, with faded segments indicating those who have since moved on.

In total I’ve looked at six leagues: the other four members of the “big five” - i.e. the top tiers of Spain, Italy, Germany and France - plus those in Netherlands and Portugal for good measure.

I’ve chosen to rely entirely on Transfermarkt: each club’s current squad list has been compared against the minutes accumulated in league matches last season to calculate what proportion of playing time has been retained.

Serie A

Tackling these in descending UEFA coefficient order, most of Italy’s top teams look to have kept the core of their squads together. The notable exception is Milan, who have undergone more churn than every team except Verona and will be missing two of their three most-used players from 2024-25. Tijjani Reijnders has been sold to Man City and Theo Hernández to Al Hilal.

Two of the three promoted teams - Sassuolo and Cremonese - will each have to make do without two of their three most-used players, most of whom were loanees.

La Liga

In the Spanish top tier, Mallorca and Vallecano both made huge strides last season - going from relegation danger to top half finishes - and have managed to hold onto most of their players.

Barcelona are the least-changed of the main title challengers so far, although Atlético Madrid’s departures have mostly been fringe players. Their local rivals Espanyol are at the other end of the chart, having lost three of their six most-used players from last season. Two were loanees and the third - ever-present goalkeeper Joan García - has been poached by Barça.

Bundesliga

In the German top flight, last season’s runners-up Leverkusen will look very different this time around. Six of their eight most-used players having departed: Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong (both to Liverpool), Granit Xhaka, Jonathan Tah, Lukas Hradecky and Piero Hincapié.

Leipzig are without three of their five most-used players from 2024-25: Benjamin Šeško and Xavi Simons have moved to the Premier League while Loïs Openda has gone to Juventus.

Ligue 1

It’s no surprise to see French (and European) champions PSG being able to retain the majority of last season’s minutes, but it’s interesting that neighbours Paris FC have kept the faith with the majority of their promotion-winning squad.

Nantes finished close to the relegation zone for the third year running and will now have to do without the core of last season’s team, with four of their five most-used players departing.

Fellow relegation battle survivors Le Havre will also look very different on the pitch this season, although they have retained their core: six of their seven most-used players still remain at the club.

Eredivisie

There has already been plenty of significant movement near the summit of the Dutch top tier, with both champions PSV and third-placed Feyenoord set to line up quite differently. Both clubs have lost three of their four most-used players, with PSV the most-changed side of all.

Another Rotterdam side - Excelsior - have retained six of the seven core players from their successful promotion campaign but shed most of the rest.

Primeira Liga

I’ve unintentionally saved the weirdest for last, as newly-promoted Alverca have jettisoned their entire squad apart from one player. I thought this was a bug in the code at first, but you can see from their squad page that virtually everyone on the list has joined this summer. Attacking midfielder Diogo Martins is the only surviving first-team member from 2024-25.

While Viktor Gyökeres’ departure from Sporting attracted a lot of headlines, their team is the most intact of the traditional “big three”.

Benfica have lost two of their four most-used players, with Álvaro Carreras being sold to Real Madrid and Orkun Kökçü heading to Beşiktaş. Porto have cleared out a lot of their backups but have held onto their seven most-used players.

Following on from the Premier League version last week, I’ve combined the newly-released EFL fixture lists with an aggregation of bookmakers’ outright odds to highlight each club’s runs of tough and easy matches.

Each row in the matrices below lists a club’s league fixtures in chronological order, colour-coded by opposition strength. The clubs themselves are sorted and numbered by where the odds imply they’ll finish in the table, which allows teams in the grid to be identified.

The strength categories can be a bit tricky to optimise, as ideally they should be both fair and of roughly equal size. Fortunately, this season the odds are clustered in such a way that there’s a clear “top seven” and “bottom seven” in two out of the three divisions, and the other is the same only with eights.

Championship

Relegated Leicester have been given a gentle reintroduction to the second tier, as they face four of the seven weakest teams in their opening five fixtures. It’s a similar story for Bristol City, who follow up a tricky opening game at Sheffield United with six consecutive games against opponents expected to finish in the bottom half of the table.

Oxford are among the relegation favourites again and could find themselves in the drop zone early on with four tough matches in their opening seven.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see Blackburn limp over the finish line at the end of the season given their horrible run-in: all of their last nine fixtures are against clubs predicted to finish in mid-table or better, including six of the top seven.

League One

It looks set to be a tough start for Plymouth’s promotion challenge as they meet five of their expected rivals in the first eight fixtures.

Wigan could finish the season strongly as they have one of the easiest run-ins: their final meeting with an expected top seven team is in early March and they face six of the seven weakest tams in their last eight games.

The tail end of the season could go the opposite way for Port Vale, whose last 13 opponents include all of the expected top seven but no relegation candidates.

League Two

Walsall narrowly missed out on promotion last season and - as last week’s post on squad retention shows - have lost a lot of their players over the summer. We can now add a tough opening schedule to their list of problems, with all of their first seven opponents expected to finish in the top half (including five who are backed to finish above them).

Newport are predicted to struggle and their tough start will make it difficult to confound that expectation early on. They will face all of the division’s seven strongest teams by early October while only two of their first 11 opponents are projected to finish in the bottom half of the table.

Barrow’s season starts with back-to-back games against the three toughest teams and they only play one “easy” game before mid-November.

Last week’s look at game states highlighted teams who had spent lots of time leading but finished low in the table (and vice versa), and it wasn’t easy to figure out how that had happened. One way to dig into this is to recalculate the league table only using goals scored and conceded up to a certain minute, as this shows the impact of a team’s performance at different stages of their matches. There’s a page on Transfermarkt that lets you do this with any combination of 15-minute segments.

However, I was interested in being able to stop the clocks at any minute and pinpoint when each club was at its highest and lowest. That’s a bit of a data visualisation challenge: for a 24-team division with 90 minutes to cover (assuming we roll up stoppage time into the 45th and 90th) that’s over 2,000 numbers to display.

A big colour-coded table is one way to approach it, but that’s asking the audience to do a lot of reading and the patterns don’t exactly jump off the page. Previously I’ve gotten around this by using animated GIFs or videos to plot the data for one team at a time, but that requires a lot of tedious skipping and pausing.

Emboldened by cramming a lot of information into last week’s squad age profiles, I was determined to fit a minute-by-minute position chart for every team in a division onto a single page that’s viewable on a phone screen (admittedly perhaps with a bit of pinching and zooming required to see the finer detail).

Here’s an example of how they work. At the top we have the team’s finishing position (in this case 6th) and name, below which I’ve picked out an interesting time interval.

Below is the team’s chart: from left to right it plots the club’s league position if every game had ended after one minute, two minutes etc all the way up to full-time. The first one on each page has 15-minute intervals indicated.

I’ve drawn in some hopefully obvious horizontal lines to indicate the automatic promotion, play-off and relegation zones, along with the middle of the table. I didn’t add labels down the side for positions as they squashed the charts too much.

The shaded area illustrates the elapsed time up to the interesting interval I’ve picked out above each chart. I originally tried to add a dot to the colour-coded line, but I couldn’t make these big enough to be obvious when zoomed out without covering a big chunk of the pattern. I therefore opted for shading, which I think works better and adds an extra splash of colour.

Putting this all together for our example, we can see that Bristol City became a lot more effective towards the end of matches, going from lower mid-table to the play-offs via a couple of big jumps after 56 and 75 minutes. I checked the raw data and the net result of their efforts after the 55th minute added 15 points to their final total.

Let’s now take the traditional downwards route through the top four English divisions, in which I’ll pull out a couple of examples for each.

Premier League

If you threw away all of the goals scored in the last 30 minutes of Premier League games this season then Arsenal would be champions, with 76 points to Liverpool’s 74. The Reds made the last half an hour of their games count, with a net gain of 10 points. Wind the clock back further to 49 minutes and Man City would have the best record (ahead of the Gunners on goal difference.

West Ham had some serious problems at the start of games this season: they were the league’s worst performers during the opening half-hour. After 30 minutes they had a combined tally of 30 points (i.e. having lost eight from their opening balance of 38, with every game starting at 0-0).

Aston Villa were also slow starters: with 13 minutes on the clock they were the league’s fifth-worst team but got gradually better as time went on. Brighton look to have clicked between the 28th and 32nd minutes of their matches, during which they made a net gain of 10 points.

There were plenty of teams who peaked early, with Nottingham Forest having the league’s best record after 16 minutes of action (racing to 56 points at this stage) and Chelsea likewise with 28 minutes on the clock (62 points).

Note: As there’s no promotion from the top flight, I’ve draw the first horizontal line in 5th place i.e. Champions League qualification.

Championship

As we saw in the example above, Bristol City made it into the play-offs despite having a mid-table record until relatively late on. Stoke also tended to get their act together towards the end of matches: after 73 minutes they had the league’s joint-lowest points tally (only ahead of Plymouth on goal difference) but gained a net 10 points over the rest of their games.

While a number of other teams peaked early, the one that really stands out for me is Preston, whose late-game struggles almost resulted in relegation. After 72 minutes I have them on 64 points (just four below the play-off places), but they ended up just one point above the drop zone.

Derby were often unable to protect the gains from their strong early performances. Their chart shows a gradual decline after the first half an hour of play, which saw them shed a net total of 12 points. Game management also appears to have been an issue for relegated Luton, who often started well. The first 27 minutes of their games yielded a combined 61 points, which is 12 more than they ended up with.

League One

Wrexham’s second consecutive promotion may not have happened without their ability to finish games strongly. After 55 minutes of play they’d only banked 68 of their eventual 92 points, at which stage Birmingham already had 94 on the board.

Charlton also stood out for their ability to eke out results late in games, gaining 20 points after the 67th minute and rising from 11th to 4th in the process. I also have to applaud Bolton, who stood out in the game states analysis for finishing 8th despite spending far more time losing than winning. To say they peaked late in games would be an understatement: if only goals scored in the first 59 minutes counted then they’d have been relegated, with their points tally increasing from 47 to 68 thereafter.

The last half an hour of Barnsley’s fixtures went in the opposite direction as they slipped from automatic promotion to mid-table, shedding a combined 17 points.

League Two

Play-off finalists Walsall and Wimbledon both had interesting trajectories. The Saddlers tended to perform poorly in the opening half-hour of games before recovering, while Wimbledon had the best record in the division until late on.

I highlighted Barrow as an unusual team when looking at game states last week. Despite their lower mid-table finish, only five teams had a better balance of time spent winning versus losing. Now we can see what happened: with 68 minutes on the clock they had 76 points (good enough for second place), but collectively lost 17 points over the remainder of their matches.

It was a similar story for Fleetwood, who had the 3rd best record after 76 minutes but fell away sharply towards the end of games. They were also ahead a lot more often than they trailed this season. This was also the case with Bromley, who had the league’s best record after 30 minutes.

Swindon’s games often went the opposite way. Despite ending their campaign in mid-table, only three teams had a worse balance of time spent losing versus winning. They collectively gained 16 points in the last half-hours of games and 11 of these were added after the 89th minute, suggesting a lot of last-ditch efforts that paid off.

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There’s a donut chart for each team in the top four English divisions, with each segment representing a player who featured for them in the league last season. These are sized proportionally to how much they played, with faded-out segments indicating players who have left the club. The big number in the middle of each donut is the percentage of 2024-25 minutes racked up by players who are still there.

I’ve tweaked the aspect ratio of the templates a bit this season to make them fit a phone screen better, which hopefully makes them easier to read.

The data I’ve collected is available here if anyone’s interested - please let me know if you think I’ve missed something.

Also there’s another version of this post for the main European leagues here.

Premier League

As usual, the top flight has seen the lowest amount of churn overall. Fulham ended the window as the least-changed side overall, while Aston Villa were the only club in the Premier League and EFL who kept all of last season’s most-used XI together (thanks to the late collapse of Emiliano Martínez’s move to Man Utd).

Bournemouth saw the highest level of turnover, with four of their six most-used players moving on (Illia Zabarnyi. Milos Kerkez, Dean Huijsen and Kepa Arrizabalaga). It was the same story at Brentford after Yoanne Wissa’s deadline day exit: he joins Bryan Mbeumo, Mark Flekken and Christian Norgaard in leaving the club.

Championship

Moving down to the second tier, we can see that a bit more movement has taken place. There are only four teams that retained at least three-quarters of last season’s minutes, compared to 11 in the Premier League.

Sheffield Wednesday spent much of the summer as the division’s most-changed team - which was unsurprising given their off-field problems - but Southampton overtook them late on. In total the Saints have lost four of their five most-used players from last season.

Nobody in the EFL managed to keep all of their most-used XI, but four of the five teams that retained 10 were in the Championship: Bristol City, Charlton, Coventry and Wrexham.

League One

In the third tier, every team lost at least a quarter of last season’s minutes while 12 shed more than half. League One contains the two most-changed squads among the 92: the players departing Leyton Orient and Plymouth each accumulated around two-thirds of their clubs’ playing time in 2024-25.

What’s interesting about Leyton Orient is that they have predominantly lost their first-choice players: only one of their most-used seven remains and along with Luton they have lost eight of their top XI. While Northampton experienced a similarly high level of churn, their core is mostly intact: five of their most-used eight are still in the building.

Every club in the division bar one is set to be without at least two of their most-used XI, with the exception being Stevenage (who have only lost one).

League Two

Overall there has been slightly less churn in the fourth tier than the third. As with the division above, everyone has lost at least a quarter of last season’s minutes, but four more teams have held onto at least half.

Walsall have lost all of the five most-used players from last season’s promotion push, with three other teams shorn of their top three: Bristol Rovers, Cheltenham and Crewe. Crawley join the Saddlers in having only retained four of their most-used XI.

As I do every season, I’ve combined the Premier League fixture list with an aggregation of bookmakers’ outright odds to highlight each club’s tough and easy runs of matches.

Each row in the matrix below lists a club’s league fixtures in chronological order, colour-coded by opposition strength. The clubs themselves are sorted and numbered by where the odds imply they’ll finish in the table.

I’ve tweaked the categories a bit this season to better reflect the grouping of the odds, which are always more polarised than in the EFL divisions. The four strongest clubs are shown in dark red and the next five in lighter red, with the same pattern in blue for the weaker teams. You can also use the numbers down the side of the grid to identify opponents.

I also did this for the three EFL divisions when their fixtures were released the following week (again updating it on the eve of the season to allow for changes in the odds).

Thomas Frank’s successor at Brentford will need to hit the ground running, as they will play five of the seven strongest teams before the end of October. Burnley have also been handed a tough reintroduction to the Premier League, with mostly “top half” opposition early on.

Arsenal and Man Utd may find it difficult to build early momentum as each face three of the predicted top five in their opening five fixtures.

Meanwhile newly-promoted Sunderland have been handed a gentle reintroduction to the top flight: like Chelsea their first four games are against teams likely to finish in the bottom half, while they and Aston Villa go the joint-longest before meeting a “big four” team (in late October).

If Leeds find themselves in a relegation battle as expected then a “great escape” could be on the cards. All of their games against the expected top four will be out of the way before March, leaving them with a relatively gentle run-in.

I’ve greatly missed running Experimental 361, so was delighted to have passed the 1,000 subscriber mark despite the recent lack of activity. I want to figure out whether there’s still a place for it and have put together a plan that I can scale up from if things go well.

What to expect over the coming weeks (and months)

When the Premier League and EFL fixtures are released over the next few weeks, I’ll be creating my usual fixture difficulty matrices. These highlight tough and easy runs of games for each team over the season based on the latest betting odds; here’s last year’s version as a reminder.

There will also be the usual tracking of squad retention for each team in the top four divisions. It will look very similar to this version from last season and the first iteration should be published within the next week.

Otherwise I’ll be using the summer break to try out some new graphical templates using last season’s data. There are already a couple in the works.

I’ll be creating quite a few individual posts to keep their sizes manageable, but to avoid clogging up inboxes I’ll only ever send out a handful of emails per week summarising and linking to everything that’s been added.

With the announcements out of the way, it’s time for a belated information dump.

Who were the youngest (and oldest) teams last season?

I’ve renovated one of my previous graphics that looks at squad age. These were a staple of the old blog but were due a makeover, so I’ve added a few extra bells and whistles to make comparisons between clubs easier. They now look like wonky 8-bit spaceships rather than factory-damaged lava lamps:

You can view the full post covering all Premier League and EFL clubs - along with an explanation of how the graphics work - here.

Summarising attacking and defensive performance

I realised that I hadn’t updated the classic scatter graphics since late 2024, so there are now full-season versions for 2024-25: four for each of the top four divisions. Here’s a quick zoomed-out preview, with the links to the individual posts below:

• Premier League - Brentford were one of the most efficient sides at both ends of the pitch, while wasteful shooting was a problem for Man Utd.

• Championship - Leeds were the standout performers, but Burnley’s defence was so good that I had to stretch one of the graphics out.

• League One - Defensive resilience looks to have been key to Wrexham’s success, whereas the lack of it was costly for Crawley.

• League Two - Some clinical finishing from Newport’s attack kept them out of trouble this season, while Harrogate can thank their defence for doing likewise.

A few other quick visualisations

I was also able to churn out a couple of simpler posts while I was rummaging around in the data:

• A breakdown of how much time everyone spent winning, drawing and losing last season. As usual there are a few surprises in there, such as Barrow finishing 16th despite only four teams leading for longer overall.

• Here are each club’s footprints, summarising how they each moved around the league table over the course of the season. All four divisions had only one team who never finished a day outside the top half of the table and two who never reached it.

In the charts below, teams are ranked by the difference in the proportion of time they spent winning versus losing. I’ve also included their final league positions in brackets to make it easier to spot teams whose control of matches was noticeably out of whack with the number of points they won.

Premier League

While nobody spent more time winning than champions Liverpool, runners-up Arsenal maintained a similarly impressive skew by rarely falling behind. However, only Everton games saw the scores tied for longer than those involving the Gunners.

Brentford are an interesting outlier: they finished in mid-table despite spending a lot more time ahead than behind. While they were slightly below-average at protecting leads, what looks to have made the difference is their strong finish to the season: they were ahead for large chunks of time during their final six games.

Championship

In the second tier, the top three teams stood apart from the rest, with Burnley in particular impressive for how rarely they trailed. Meanwhile, no club in the top four divisions spent a larger share of time winning than Leeds.

It looks to have been a frustrating season for Preston, who spent marginally more time winning than losing yet somehow ended up 20th. They tied with Norwich for the most points dropped from winning positions (30) and only the Canaries conceded more equalisers (18 to 17).

League One

This was an impressively dominant season from champions Birmingham: nobody in the top four divisions had a bigger difference between time spent winning and losing (5.8 minutes leading for every minute they trailed).

Barnsley stand out here as having spent far more time winning than losing, yet ending up in mid-table. It looks like they led early in a lot of their wins, while a high proportion of their defeats saw them fall behind in the second halves of games.

Bolton were the other side of that coin: they were able to win 20 games and secure a top-half finish despite conceding the opening goal on 26 occasions (the 3rd highest after the relegated duo of Shrewsbury and Cambridge).

League Two

The fourth tier was alone in not having any standout dominant teams. While Wimbledon’s promotion was secured via the playoffs, they spent less time losing than anyone else.

Barrow had an odd season, with the fifth best balance of time spent winning versus losing despite their bottom-half finish. While they dropped an above-average share of points from winning positions, their issue looks to have been similar to Barnsley’s in the division above i.e. locking in a lot of their wins early, while a number of defeats were due to falling behind later in games.

Crewe and Swindon both secured mid-table finishes despite often having to chase games, implying that they succeeded at least some of the time. I count 20 equalisers scored by the Robins, which is five more than anyone else managed.

This is one of the simplest to create from a data perspective: I’ve calculated the league table at the end of each day, from the date of the first game to the last.

Teams are listed in their final positions down the side of the table, with each row showing how many days they ended in each position. The idea is to create a “footprint” of each team over the course of the season.

Premier League

Starting with the top flight, champions Liverpool only spent seven weeks below top spot and only two days outside the top four.

The only other teams besides Man City to top the table were Man Utd (who won the sole opening day fixture) and Brighton (who overtook them the following day thanks to a 3-0 win).

Poor Southampton only spent the first 15 days of their campaign outside the relegation zone and sat exclusively 20th from early November onwards.

The only day that Everton finished in the top half of the table was opening day on alphabetical order; otherwise their final ranking was their highest of the season.

Meanwhile Tottenham ended in the lowest position they occupied all season, progressively slipping downwards from February onwards.

Arsenal were the only team not to end a single day in the bottom half of the table, while Wolves and Southampton never sat in the top half.

Championship

Moving to the second tier, Sunderland’s elevation via the playoffs meant that the three promoted teams were the ones who had spent the most time at the top of the table. The final top four all ended up in their most common places during the season.

Watford finished in the bottom half of the table despite not setting foot in it until mid-February - when they dipped their toe into 13th for a day - and the final week of the season.

Coventry had the opposite trajectory: they ended their campaign in the highest position they occupied, securing a playoff spot despite having dropped into the relegation zone in late October and not leaving the bottom half until January.

Blackburn were the only team never to finish a day in the bottom half of the table, which is where both Plymouth and Preston sat exclusively during the season.

League One

In the third tier it was a frustrating season for Wycombe, who spent more time in the top two than Wrexham but ultimately missed out on promotion.

Bristol Rovers’ relegation probably stings a little bit more given how little time they spent in the danger zone: only 25 days in total. Leyton Orient languished there for almost two additional weeks yet ended up in the playoffs.

It was also a disappointing campaign for Huddersfield, who finished 10th despite spending almost two-thirds of it in the top six (they were there until late March).

Champions Birmingham were the only side never to end a day in the bottom half of the table, while Shrewsbury and Wigan both failed to reach the top half at any point.

League Two

Poor Walsall spent half the season in top spot - including an unbroken 119-day stretch from early December to early April - yet finished outside the top three.

After sitting second on opening day (after drawing the only game), Swindon didn’t set foot in the top half of the table again until mid-April. They went on to finish there despite spending over four months parked perilously close to the relegation places.

Despite a season of poor performance, Newport didn’t drop to their final position of 22nd until the last day and were sat in the relative comfort of 18th only two weeks earlier.

In keeping with the pattern established by the three higher divisions, there was only one team who never set foot in the bottom half of the table (champions Doncaster) and two (Harrogate and Morecambe) who didn’t finish a day in the top half.

For each club in the top four English divisions I’ve created a little “population pyramid” to summarise the share of minutes they gave to players of each age. These are calculated using everyone’s exact ages at the time of each match.

I find these useful in getting a sense of how balanced each squad was and also which clubs put more trust in youth during the season.

Here’s a quick example of how they work using Cardiff, as they had one of the more interesting profiles.

Starting with the label at the top, the number in brackets is the average age of their starting line-ups in years.

Age increases as you go up the diagram, so we have the share of minutes given to players aged 18 (and under) at the bottom, then 19-year-olds etc all the way up to a bucket for everyone aged 35 or older. The black hollow shape is the average distribution for the league this season, with a few horizontal lines to indicate age boundaries. The coloured area is that club’s distribution, so we can see how it differs.

In Cardiff’s case, their use of young players overall this season was pretty average, with 22-year-olds getting quite a few minutes. However, they didn’t use that many peak-aged players (i.e. those in their prime years), instead relying on players aged 29-31. Their four most-used outfielders are all now in their thirties: O'Dowda, Chambers, Goutas and Ng.

That’s not necessarily a problem, as players of this age are hardly decrepit, but there’s a good chance they’re past their physical peak. Therefore if the club were to take the same squad into next season then there’s a chance of that elder core not being able to cover as much ground or contribute as many minutes.

Let’s now look at all of the 92 clubs, league-by-league.

Premier League

Starting in the top flight, Chelsea immediately stand out with their extreme focus on youth. Their starting line-ups were over a year younger than anyone else’s on average: a shade over 24, with their most youthful XI of the season being almost a full year younger than that. They were also the only team out of the 92 not to field anyone over the age of 27 in a league game.

Meanwhile Crystal Palace’s successful season was built around peak-aged players, with very little playing time given to anyone under 24 or over 30. While the younger members of that cohort still have plenty of good years ahead of them, it may be prudent to give some emerging talents a bit more first-team exposure next season.

Championship

Moving onto the second tier, it’s another young team that catches the eye: Sunderland got promoted with the Championship’s lowest average starting age. Nobody in the top four English divisions gave a higher share of minutes to teenagers than their 22%, with Jobe Bellingham, Chris Rigg and Eliezer Mayenda all regular starters.

At the other end of the spectrum, Blackburn were another team who relied heavily on peak-aged players this season while giving more minutes to over-32s than under-25s.

League One

England’s third tier had the biggest spread of ages, including both the oldest and youngest teams in the top four divisions.

Starting with the oldest, Mansfield’s starting line-ups were the only ones to clock in at over 30 on average. Almost half of league minutes (45%) went to players in their thirties and their final XI of the season had an average age of almost 32: it featured six starters aged between 33 and 39, with a 35-year-old Jordan Rhodes coming off the bench.

At the youthful end of the spectrum, there were only 20 days separating the average ages of Reading and Peterborough’s starting line-ups. While the Royals were one of only two teams covered here who gave more than half of their minutes to players aged 21 and under, a few regular starters in their late twenties (Lewis Wing and Joel Pereira) bumped up their overall average.

League Two

Finally in the fourth tier, Crewe were the other team for whom players aged 21 or under accumulated half of all league minutes. All of their four most regular starters -Filip Marshall (who recently turned 22), Max Conway, Zac Williams and Joel Tabiner - were in this category. However, this wasn’t entirely down to their academy as the first two players in that list were loanees.

Walsall made it to the play-off final with a youthful team augmented by a few experienced heads (35-year-old Jamille Matt and 37-year-old Albert Adomah). Meanwhile Bromley and Salford look to have navigated this season with a blend of youth and experience but not much in between.

Shot dominance

First of all, here is how the number of shots taken by each club compares with those they face in return. The average number of shots taken per match is on the horizontal and the average number faced is on the vertical, so bottom right (take plenty, allow few in return) is good while top left (take few, allow plenty) is bad.

The stripes are like contours: the greener the stripe, the better the performance (and vice versa for red). The matching labels that sit around the edges of the chart indicate how good (or bad) it is to be in each shaded area, based on the historical distribution of teams over previous seasons.

In raw shot terms, Newport look fortunate to have avoided the drop: they allowed five more shots per game than the average team while taking over two fewer in return.

While Doncaster were promoted in dominant fashion, Port Vale did not out-shoot their opponents by much and Wimbledon’s defence looks to have made the difference for them.

Attacking effectiveness

Now let’s look at attacking alone. The horizontal axis stays the same as in the graphic above, but now the vertical shows the average number of shots needed to score each league goal. Therefore bottom right is good (taking lots of shots and needing fewer efforts to convert) and top left is bad.

While Newport created the fewest chances in the league, it helped that they were one of the more clinical finishers. The two relegated teams - Morecambe and Carlisle - attempted a respectable number of shots but struggled to convert them.

Defensive effectiveness

Next let’s look at the defensive situation – basically take the above chart and replace the word “taken” for “faced” on both axes. Now top left is good (facing fewer shots and soaking up more for each goal conceded) and bottom right is bad.

Wimbledon were the league’s standout defensive performers. with only Crewe soaking up more shots for each goal they conceded.

This is where Accrington struggled this season: despite allowing their opponents fewer shots than the average team, nobody found it more difficult to repel them.

Expected goals

Finally here's a version of the first graphic that uses expected goals (xG) instead of shots, which should be a more accurate reflection of attacking and defensive quality. These are calculated using my own somewhat ancient model based on a relatively simple dataset, but in practice it tends to agree pretty well with the more advanced ones out there.

When we adjust for shot quality, Doncaster look to be deserving champions and Walsall can feel a bit hard done by.

Newport look a bit healthier here than they did in the first graphic, but along with Harrogate they need some improvements over the summer.

Shot dominance

First of all, here is how the number of shots taken by each club compares with those they face in return. The average number of shots taken per match is on the horizontal and the average number faced is on the vertical, so bottom right (take plenty, allow few in return) is good while top left (take few, allow plenty) is bad.

The stripes are like contours: the greener the stripe, the better the performance (and vice versa for red). The matching labels that sit around the edges of the chart indicate how good (or bad) it is to be in each shaded area, based on the historical distribution of teams over previous seasons.

Champions Birmingham were the only one of the three promoted teams who stood out for their shot dominance, creating the second most chances and allowing the fewest.

At this superficial level it’s surprising to see that Crawley were relegated, as in raw shot terms they looked pretty average. The remaining graphics will shed a bit of light on this.

Attacking effectiveness

Now let’s look at attacking alone. The horizontal axis stays the same as in the graphic above, but now the vertical shows the average number of shots needed to score each league goal. Therefore bottom right is good (taking lots of shots and needing fewer efforts to convert) and top left is bad.

There’s a noticeable divide here between the eight teams in the top right corner - who struggled in front of goal this season - and everyone else.

Stevenage and Wigan struggled to convert their chances but (as the next graphic shows) were able to eke out a mid-table finish thanks to their strong defences.

Defensive effectiveness

Next let’s look at the defensive situation – basically take the above chart and replace the word “taken” for “faced” on both axes. Now top left is good (facing fewer shots and soaking up more for each goal conceded) and bottom right is bad.

Wrexham were only a little above-average on the previous two charts, but here we can see that their promotion campaign was built on defensive resilience. Despite allowing slightly fewer shots, Bolton conceded over twice as many goals.

Here’s where things went wrong for Crawley: they the leakiest defence in the league, at least in terms of how many attempts it took to find their net.

Expected goals

Finally here's a version of the first graphic that uses expected goals (xG) instead of shots, which should be a more accurate reflection of attacking and defensive quality. These are calculated using my own somewhat ancient model based on a relatively simple dataset, but in practice it tends to agree pretty well with the more advanced ones out there.

When we adjust for shot quality, Birmingham stand out as deserving champions, with the best performances at both ends of the pitch.

Stockport and Wycombe should both be capable of another promotion challenge, while Exeter, Burton and Northampton may need to shake things up if they’re to avoid a relegation battle.

Shot dominance

First of all, here is how the number of shots taken by each club compares with those they face in return. The average number of shots taken per match is on the horizontal and the average number faced is on the vertical, so bottom right (take plenty, allow few in return) is good while top left (take few, allow plenty) is bad.

The stripes are like contours: the greener the stripe, the better the performance (and vice versa for red). The matching labels that sit around the edges of the chart indicate how good (or bad) it is to be in each shaded area, based on the historical distribution of teams over previous seasons.

Leeds were the most dominant team by far in raw shot terms, taking two more per game on average than anyone else and allowing noticeably fewer than Burnley’s excellent defence.

It’s unusual to see a team create as many chances as Middlesbrough without at least finishing in the play-off zone.

Attacking effectiveness

Now let’s look at attacking alone. The horizontal axis stays the same as in the graphic above, but now the vertical shows the average number of shots needed to score each league goal. Therefore bottom right is good (taking lots of shots and needing fewer efforts to convert) and top left is bad.

Leeds’ monster attack set the standard this season: not only did they create the most chances but were also one of the more clinical finishers.

Burnley and Norwich were similarly efficient in front of goal from a far more modest shot total. Interestingly, Cardiff were relegated despite taking more shots than the promoted Clarets.

Defensive effectiveness

Next let’s look at the defensive situation – basically take the above chart and replace the word “taken” for “faced” on both axes. Now top left is good (facing fewer shots and soaking up more for each goal conceded) and bottom right is bad.

The Burnley defence was so good that I had to make this chart taller, as otherwise the remaining teams would have been squeezed into an illegible mess.

Stoke’s defence kept them out of trouble this season, as they fared poorly on the two previous charts but benefited from some above-average resilience at the back.

Expected goals

Finally here's a version of the first graphic that uses expected goals (xG) instead of shots, which should be a more accurate reflection of attacking and defensive quality. These are calculated using my own somewhat ancient model based on a relatively simple dataset, but in practice it tends to agree pretty well with the more advanced ones out there.

When we adjust for shot quality it’s a similar story to the first chart, with Leeds way out in front of everyone else. It’s hardly controversial to point out that Burnley’s defence was the key to their success.

Oxford’s attack may need some fresh ideas if they’re to avoid a relegation battle next season, while Stoke look like they need a more effective means of disrupting their opponents.

Shot dominance

First of all, here is how the number of shots taken by each club compares with those they face in return. The average number of shots taken per match is on the horizontal and the average number faced is on the vertical, so bottom right (take plenty, allow few in return) is good while top left (take few, allow plenty) is bad.

The stripes are like contours: the greener the stripe, the better the performance (and vice versa for red). The matching labels that sit around the edges of the chart indicate how good (or bad) it is to be in each shaded area, based on the historical distribution of teams over previous seasons.

The promoted - and subsequently relegated - trio of Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich struggled to impose themselves on games. However it was interesting to see Brentford allow so many shots.

The top four stood out as the most dominant teams, and despite their terrible season Man Utd had one of the healthier shot differences in the league.

Attacking effectiveness

Now let’s look at attacking alone. The horizontal axis stays the same as in the graphic above, but now the vertical shows the average number of shots needed to score each league goal. Therefore bottom right is good (taking lots of shots and needing fewer efforts to convert) and top left is bad.

Despite taking an above-average number of shots, Man Utd were among the league’s most wasteful finishers, second only to bottom club Southampton. As we’ll see a bit further down, their shooting was definitely “quantity over quality” this season.

Defensive effectiveness

Next let’s look at the defensive situation – basically take the above chart and replace the word “taken” for “faced” on both axes. Now top left is good (facing fewer shots and soaking up more for each goal conceded) and bottom right is bad.

This is another chart in which the bottom three stand out for the wrong reasons - they were all worse than average at dealing with shots while also facing a lot of them.

Brentford meanwhile were able to soak up a lot of opponent efforts for each goal conceded, on a par with surprise package Nottingham Forest.

Expected goals

Finally here's a version of the first graphic that uses expected goals (xG) instead of shots, which should be a more accurate reflection of attacking and defensive quality. These are calculated using my own somewhat ancient model based on a relatively simple dataset, but in practice it tends to agree pretty well with the more advanced ones out there.

When we adjust for shot quality, Liverpool’s attack stands out as the best by quite some distance, while the three relegated teams stretch the diagram in the opposite direction.

It’s a surprise to see Nottingham Forest in the below-average section of the chart after a successful season. I thought it might just be my stone-age model’s fault, but I can see similar negative xG differences elsewhere. How they start next season may help to determine whether they’ve been on an unsustainable hot streak or were doing something interesting that the shot data doesn’t fully capture.

I’ve calculated a massive league table sorted in descending order of points per game, followed by goal difference and then goals scored. To keep things as fair as possible, cup and play-off games have been excluded. Clubs who were promoted or relegated in the summer have had their records from both divisions combined, including National League games for the promoted clubs in League Two.

Points deductions haven’t been included as they apply to a specific season (so it’d be tricky to apportion them) and in any case they would detract from the purpose of comparing performances.

Here's the full table in all its glory - for anyone who has trouble viewing such a tall image on their device, I've also added it to my Google Drive space alongside some more manageable chunks here.

Arsenal’s defence makes the difference

Arsenal are the 2024 “champions” of the English professional leagues, having racked up the same number of points as Liverpool in one game fewer. Even if the Reds had won the postponed Merseyside derby earlier this month, it wouldn’t have been enough to close the gap.

While Liverpool were English football’s most impressive attacking team with an average of 2.49 goals per game, they only netted three more times than the Gunners. It was a different story at the back: Arsenal conceded 17 fewer goals and maintained the nation’s best defensive record with just 0.69 conceded per game.

Fully half of Arsenal’s games ended in a clean sheet, which only fourth-placed Leeds (56%) were able to better. The Reds found the net more reliably though, drawing only three blanks in 37 league games this year. As a proportion this narrowly loses out to that of Manchester City, who also failed to score three times but over 38 games.

Speaking of the reigning Premier League champions, if I’d run this table at the start of November then they would have been sitting comfortably clear at the top with 2.64 points per game and zero defeats. All six of their 2024 losses have occurred since then, dropping them down to third.

Jumping back briefly to Leeds before we move on, it’s interesting to see no other Championship teams in the top 20 this year. They had a near-perfect start to 2024, winning 37 points out of a possible 39 and conceding just three goals in the process.

No symmetry this year

There was further disappointment in Manchester yesterday evening when Newcastle’s Joelinton robbed us of a perfectly symmetrical record. Had the Magpies stopped scoring after Alexander Isak’s opener at Old Trafford then Manchester United would have finished 2024 with the same number of wins as losses and a goal difference of zero.

Peterborough came close to achieving symmetry in a more entertaining way, having drawn just five games - the smallest proportion in England - and winning one fewer than they lost with a combined goal difference of +2. Their defensive record was a far cry from the likes of Arsenal’s, having kept just four clean sheets this year. Only Morecambe mustered a lower percentage of shut-outs (also four, but from two more games in total).

The Posh were also one of 2024’s most entertaining teams for the neutral: second among five that saw over 3.5 total goals per game. Chelsea’s matches narrowly edged ahead of theirs in the entertainment stakes with an average of 3.68, with the others being Newcastle, Liverpool and Tottenham.

Other teams had a near brush with symmetry in a less exciting way. Stevenage and Millwall were the only clubs whose games served up fewer than two total goals on average. Meanwhile, Colchester were the anti-Peterborough: all about those draws. Over half of their matches ended in stalemate, which no other team came close to achieving.

It was also a year to forget for two clubs who failed to score in over half of their games: Rotherham (57%) and Cambridge (51%). However these two scraped together enough results to stay off the bottom of the 2024 table.

That dubious honour falls to Carlisle this year. One of the northernmost teams on the English football map is substantially lower down here, with the fewest points and worst goal difference per game. The Cumbrians finished bottom of League One last season and will finish 2024 in the League Two relegation zone.

Over the course of multiple iterations they’ve become one of my all-time favourites and probably the thing I’m known best for, so it was an easy choice to rattle them out once again. Now that a sufficient chunk of the season has elapsed, I’ve created versions for each of the top four tiers of English football.

Rather than inundating this post with all of the graphics for each division, I thought it would be less annoying to just cover the most interesting ones here and hive off the rest for those who are interested. In each section below there’s a link to a separate post containing the full set of graphics for that division with accompanying commentary.

Like many football data accounts, I’ve made the move from Twitter to Bluesky recently and will also be posting all of the graphics over there for anyone who wants to discuss them.

Premier League

First of all, here’s the link to the full set if you wanted to get stuck into them.

The most interesting one for me was the attacking picture, comparing the number of shots taken by each team with the rate at which they’ve converted these into goals.

While it’s not as precise as using expected goals (which weren’t a thing when I first started making these), you can still glean some useful insights from simple shot data.

The obvious outlier here is Crystal Palace, who have so far failed to reproduce their impressive results from the end of last season. Their profligacy in front of goal has been a significant contributor to their poor start: needing over 19 attempts to score a goal - around double the average - is pretty horrific.

Fortunately for them, it is also generally not sustainable over a season, and a glimpse at the expected goals graphic in the full Premier League post shows that they’re not taking particularly bad shots. Therefore I suspect that bad luck is likely to have played a part in their poor chance conversion rate.

Championship

Again, here’s the link to the full set if you’d prefer to dive straight into those.

In the second tier it was the defensive chart that caught my eye, with several teams having sustained some pretty heroic levels of resilience so far.

Burnley and Sheffield United have both soaked up over 20 opposition shots for each goal they have conceded this season. Usually such huge outliers don’t remain so over a full 46-game season, but as they have been adept at restricting the number of chances their opponents create I doubt that either will suffer a defensive collapse.

The Clarets’ defence is doing the lion’s share of the work in keeping the team in promotion contention. As the other graphics in the full post show, their attack has been among the quietest in the division so far.

League One

Once again I’ll begin by sharing the link to the full post. For this division the simplest graphic ended up being the most interesting, as it divides quite neatly into teams who take at least 12 shots per match and those who can’t muster more than 11.

While many of the teams with more productive attacks are competing in the top half of the table, there are some notable exceptions.

Wrexham, Lincoln and Mansfield are all challenging for promotion despite being relatively shot-shy. Those who delve into the post will see that this is due to some clinical finishing rather than a focus on quality over quantity, so it will be interesting to see if any of them can sustain this level over the full campaign.

Meanwhile Rotherham are in the opposite camp: they create plenty of goalscoring opportunities (which stack up quality-wise when we whip the xG lens out), but have struggled to convert them.

League Two

Finally - and once again alongside a link to the full post - we come to the fourth tier.

This time it was the expected goals comparison which caught my eye, as there are several teams in unusual positions.

Carlisle currently sit 23rd in the table but that’s where their similarity to relegation battlers ends. They’ve been carving out chances of above-average quality and haven’t been slouches at the back either, but their execution has let them down at both ends of the pitch.

As you’ll see if you read the full post linked above, they’ve suffered with the leakiest back line in the league and their attack has also been one of the most wasteful.

Meanwhile Crewe sit second in the table despite some relatively modest performances, thanks in particular to some heroic defending. It was also surprising to see Newport sitting comfortably above the relegation zone despite being among the worst performers at both ends of the pitch, so both of these teams could well find themselves sliding downwards unless things change.

For anyone who is seeing them for the first time, they are explained fully in this post but I will briefly recap some of that information here.

In a nutshell, there are four different graphics that compare different pairs of attacking and defensive numbers for all of the teams in the division.

Shot dominance

First of all, here is how the number of shots taken by each club compares with those they face in return. The average number of shots taken per match is on the horizontal and the average number faced is on the vertical, so bottom right (take plenty, allow few in return) is good while top left (take few, allow plenty) is bad.

The stripes are like contours: the greener the stripe, the better the performance (and vice versa for red). The matching labels that sit around the edges of the chart indicate how good (or bad) it is to be in each shaded area, based on the historical distribution of teams over previous seasons.

Three teams - Doncaster, Walsall and Wimbledon - have tended to dominate more than the rest when it comes to creating chances, so it’s not surprising to see all of them in promotion contention.

Interestingly Grimsby have often found themselves on the back foot (as their goal difference of -6 will attest) but are somehow sitting in seventh place.

More eyebrow-raising still are the exploits of second-placed Crewe, who have taken shots at a lower rate than all but two other teams.

Attacking effectiveness

Now let’s look at attacking alone. The horizontal axis stays the same as in the graphic above, but now the vertical shows the average number of shots needed to score each league goal. Therefore bottom right is good (taking lots of shots and needing fewer efforts to convert) and top left is bad.

We have a partial answer to the Crewe conundrum here: they have made good use of the relatively few chances they’ve created.

Some of that sharpness has been missing at Tranmere, who have taken an average number of shots but converted them at less than half the rate.

Carlisle are experiencing a slightly less severe bout of profligacy but would undoubtedly be sitting a lot higher than 23rd if their finishing was closer to that of the average team.

Defensive effectiveness

Next let’s look at the defensive situation – basically take the above chart and replace the word “taken” for “faced” on both axes. Now top left is good (facing fewer shots and soaking up more for each goal conceded) and bottom right is bad.

Crewe are also overachieving a fair bit in defence, with the division’s best rate at soaking up shots; a shade better than also-impressive Gillingham’s.

Carlisle’s nightmarish start to the season extends to this end of the pitch too, with the leakiest defence in the division. It’s taken an average of just over six attempts to score each goal against them so far.

Expected goals

Finally here's a version of the first graphic that uses expected goals (xG) instead of shots, which should be a more accurate reflection of attacking and defensive quality. These are calculated using my own somewhat ancient model based on a relatively simple dataset, but in practice it tends to agree pretty well with the more advanced ones out there.

When we adjust for shot quality it definitely seems strange for Carlisle to be in relegation danger, seeing as they are out-creating their opponents on average.

Crewe’s lofty position continues to look out of step with their far more modest performances to date, so without a significant improvement I’d expect them to slip down the table.

Newport could find themselves dropping if they don’t improve, as they’re currently managing to hold down a mid-table place despite being among the worst performers at both ends of the pitch.

For anyone who is seeing them for the first time, they are explained fully in this post but I will briefly recap some of that information here.

In a nutshell, there are four different graphics that compare different pairs of attacking and defensive numbers for all of the teams in the division.

Shot dominance

First of all, here is how the number of shots taken by each club compares with those they face in return. The average number of shots taken per match is on the horizontal and the average number faced is on the vertical, so bottom right (take plenty, allow few in return) is good while top left (take few, allow plenty) is bad.

The stripes are like contours: the greener the stripe, the better the performance (and vice versa for red). The matching labels that sit around the edges of the chart indicate how good (or bad) it is to be in each shaded area, based on the historical distribution of teams over previous seasons.

There’s an eerily clear divide in the league this season between teams who can muster 12+ shots per game and those whose average falls short of 11.

Shots aren’t telling the whole story however, as the likes of Wrexham, Lincoln and Mansfield are all challenging for promotion despite being in the latter camp.

The Stags are particularly interesting as they’ve allowed more shots per game than anyone else.

Meanwhile Rotherham are out-shooting their opponents overall yet find themselves in the bottom half of the table.

Attacking effectiveness

Now let’s look at attacking alone. The horizontal axis stays the same as in the graphic above, but now the vertical shows the average number of shots needed to score each league goal. Therefore bottom right is good (taking lots of shots and needing fewer efforts to convert) and top left is bad.

Rotherham’s malaise just got a bit easier to diagnose: they may not be struggling to create chances but converting them has been another matter entirely.

The aforementioned trio of Lincoln, Wrexham and Mansfield meanwhile have been turning shots into goals at twice the rate of the Millers, which has helped to keep them competitive.

Defensive effectiveness

Next let’s look at the defensive situation – basically take the above chart and replace the word “taken” for “faced” on both axes. Now top left is good (facing fewer shots and soaking up more for each goal conceded) and bottom right is bad.

Exeter and Wrexham have let their opponents do plenty of shooting this season but have the best defensive records in the division. It remains to be seen whether their defences can maintain this level of resilience over a 46-game campaign, however.

Mansfield’s overworked rearguard is also doing a comfortably above-average job at keeping shots out of their net.

Expected goals

Finally here's a version of the first graphic that uses expected goals (xG) instead of shots, which should be a more accurate reflection of attacking and defensive quality. These are calculated using my own somewhat ancient model based on a relatively simple dataset, but in practice it tends to agree pretty well with the more advanced ones out there.

When we adjust for shot quality, there isn’t the same chasm in attacking output that we saw in the first chart.

For example, Peterborough are not taking very many shots (10.1 per game) but their average quality must be pretty high for them to be on a par with Reading (12.6 shots per game) here.

Newly-promoted Stockport have hit the ground running and are among the division’s top overall performers, giving two relegated teams (Birmingham and Huddersfield) a run for their money.

It will be interesting to see if Mansfield can sustain a play-off challenge as they are currently overachieving at both ends of the pitch.