No. 4: Bottom Half Opponents Await
The Premier League season is ten games old. By now we have a good idea about who teams are and what they can do. The ‘top six’ are now the current top six. Liverpool have played half the teams in the league.
However, what is interesting is that the Reds’ fixtures to date have been heavily weighted to the top 10. Liverpool have played 7 of the 8 other teams in the top nine. They have played 8 of the other 9 teams in the top eleven.
They have only played two of the bottom nine and three of the bottom eleven. Three results that were very disappointing at the time – draws at Watford and Newcastle and at home to Burnley – now don’t look terrible. Many of our rivals have either dropped points or will drop points to those three sides.
1️⃣0️⃣ matches in: happy with how your team have started the season? pic.twitter.com/4QHcT25zJc
— Premier League (@premierleague) October 30, 2017
What this means is that there is a lot of terrible teams to play. Look at the list of the teams we’re yet to face:
- Chelsea
- Southampton
- Brighton
- Stoke
- West Brom
- West Ham
- Swansea
- Everton
- Bournemouth
I see six wins and a couple of draws from those games. That is not the blind optimism of bias fan who is imagining the full potential of their side. That is based on our performances so far this year. As we hit the new year we could well created some distance between a couple of the teams fighting for Champions League places.