The Premier League So Far: Liverpool Quickly Find a Groove, Southampton Rival Possession Kings, Positive Signs for Forest

The 2024-25 Premier League season may only be three matchdays old, but with the brief break due to the international window, it’s as good a time as any to see what the numbers are saying.

With the international window in full swing, the Premier League is into its first break of the 2024-25 season. We know, it felt like things were just starting to pick up a head of steam, and then WHAM – we were hit with a two-week break.

It happens every season – and again in a few weeks! – but that doesn’t make the pause any less frustrating. Nevertheless, it provides us with a good opportunity to cast our eyes over the underlying numbers of the 20 teams competing in the top flight this term as we look ahead to the season’s resumption this weekend.

Of course, it’s very early days, and so we’ll be avoiding any sweeping declarations here – we reserve those for our weekly Knee-Jerk Reactions column. No, conclusions aren’t the aim of the game right now, rather we can hopefully provide some interesting insights into the action that you’ll not find anywhere else.

Arne Slot’s Liverpool feels like a good place to start. With three wins from as many games and yet to concede a goal, the Reds have been practically perfect under their new manager, his excellent start capped off by a resounding 3-0 win over bitter rivals Manchester United at Old Trafford on 1 September.

Liverpool are the only side with three clean sheets in the Premier League this term, while their neighbours Everton are at the opposite end of the spectrum having let in 10 goals already.

As you can imagine, Slot’s men have been pretty effective when it comes to restricting their opponents’ flow of chances, though their 2.36 expected goals against (xGA) is only the third lowest; Manchester City (2.03) and – somewhat surprisingly – Nottingham Forest (2.1) are the top two with respect to limiting quality chances.

It hasn’t been the same story for Everton, though their 6.2 xGA suggests they’ve been a tad unfortunate. As miserable as the Toffees’ start to the season has been, however, promoted Ipswich Town have arguably struggled even more; their 1.2 xG is the lowest in the division and their 6.9 xGA is the highest, though it’d be remiss of us not to point out they have had to face City and Liverpool already.

We can also use xG data to help create an expected points table. Our expected points model simulates the number of goals scored by each side in every match based on the xG value of the shots taken. It then uses the simulated number of goals to determine the match outcome (win/draw/loss). Each match is simulated 10,000 times; the expected points for each team in every game can then be calculated based on the proportion of simulations they win/draw/lose.

This is of course not an exact science, as expected goals data doesn’t take a lot of factors into account, such as game state and dangerous periods of possession that don’t lead to shots. Nevertheless, it’s still a decent barometer of how teams performed in these opening three matches.

It would appear Newcastle – who have faced more shots (54) than any other team – have been the most fortunate, accumulating seven points from three games when the expected points model suggests they should have 3.1; there’s no surprise who leads the way, though, with Liverpool (7.1) and an Erling Haaland-led Manchester City (6.7) the top two.

Pep Guardiola’s defending champions also continue to help set the tone for the Premier League’s association with possession-based football, only they didn’t actually spend more time on the ball than everyone else across the first three matchdays.

Tottenham top the chart for average share of possession at 69.1%, and City aren’t even second either, with promoted Southampton (68.1%) squeezing in ahead of the champions (64.8%).

As the playing styles graphic below highlights, Russell Martin’s side are sticking to the principles that got them promoted, and the expected points table reflects a feeling they might have been hard done by over the first few weeks, accumulating zero points in reality when they have 3.3 expected points.

Saints are intriguing. While Burnley were last season seen to be trying to play their possession-based style even after promotion from the Championship, they didn’t get anything like the same output over their first three games, seeing just 45.7% of possession and averaging 398 successful passes per match – Southampton are recording 574 on average, with 1,723 successful passes across their opening three matches. Granted, Burnley had a difficult start to last season, facing City, Aston Villa and Spurs in their first three games, but those figures hardly differed from their averages over the whole season.

Of course, having the ball can only get you so far, as Southampton are yet to win a point. But needless to say, watching if they can translate that brand of football into winning matches promises to be fascinating.

One aspect of their game from last season that they’ve struggled to establish with any real success in the Premier League, however, is a high-intensity press. In the Championship regular season last term, Southampton’s 222 high turnovers (recovering possession within 40 metres of the opposition’s goal line) was bettered by only two teams, but they’re well adrift of the metric leaders this time around. Spurs are very much champions of high turnovers (you’ll never sing that!) at the moment, with their 40 being 11 more than any other Premier League team – Everton (29), Liverpool (28) and City (27) are the ones trailing in their wake.

Spurs’ numbers in this area are reflected by how they allow their opposition just 6.3 passes on average before engaging with a defensive action (PPDA), the lowest in the Premier League, which suggests they’re doing something right. That’s 2.2 passes fewer than Arsenal in second place, while Saints are also in the top three (8.8), which makes their lowly ranking of joint-18th for high turnovers (15) all the more surprising.

Of course, the flip side to pressing is trying to play through/around/over another team’s press. Newcastle United have been pretty ineffective here; not only have teams completed more high turnovers (42) against them than anyone else, they also top the pile for pressed sequences against (passing sequences starting in their own defensive third where they have three or fewer passes and the sequence ends in their own half) with 58. Clearly, Sven Botman has been missed.

This is another area that Nottingham Forest are doing well in, however. Their 46 pressed sequences against is the third highest, and yet their 18 high turnovers against is the fifth lowest, suggesting they’ve been effective in retaining the ball despite coming under pressure.

They’re also doing a good job of not losing football matches, which is a pretty big deal in football, so we’re told.

Only Forest, Arsenal and Liverpool are yet to trail at any point in the 2024-25 Premier League season, while Saints, Leicester City, Wolves and Crystal Palace haven’t led at any point. Manchester United aren’t doing much better, spending just 3% of their matches in the lead (that’s literally just from the 87th minute onwards against Fulham after Joshua Zirkzee’s late winner).

Of course, there’s a long way to go in the 2024-25 Premier League season, but storylines, plot points and narratives are already starting to take shape. We’ll be taking notes every step of the way.

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