Liverpool boss Arne Slot had a straight-faced chuckle and response to being asked about how he fancied the Reds’ chances to lift the title. “It tells you we are a very good team. Still three games to go until halfway, but we are a hard team to beat. If it was easy to win the league then every team would do it,” the boss would deadpan, according to BBC, soon after Liverpool slammed Tottenham Hotspurs 6-3.
What piques watchers, and BBC elaborated, was how teams who celebrate Christmas Day top of the Premier League table, fare thereafter.
“Exactly half the time – in 16 seasons out of 32 – the team top of the Premier League table on Christmas Day goes on to win the title,” BBC wrote, before adding, “Liverpool’s record though is much, much worse than that. This is the seventh time the Reds have stood first on 25 December – but their only success since the top-flight’s 1992 rebrand was in 2019-20.”
In the history of English football, Liverpool have led at Christmas “more than anyone else in English football history – 21 times, winning 11 of the previous 20.”
As expected, Arsenal has found itself a way to wriggle into this wretched stat as well. BBC wrote pithily: “Going back to the Premier League era, Arsenal led the table over Christmas for a fourth time last season – and, like the previous three occasions, failed to lift the trophy.”
The bombastic blues – first Chelsea and later Manchester City – besides one-off winners Blackburn Rovers and Leicester City, however have a cent percent record in this. All five teams have always won the title when they have led the race at this merry stage.
With injuries and a stacked schedule coming into bearing, and restricted squad numbers, it is no surprise that some teams fade away as the season progresses. As a corollary, others pick up. Four times, a team outside the X’Mas top-4 has gone on to steal a late March on frontrunners.
BBC wrote: “On four occasions a team have been outside the top four at Christmas and won the title – including last season. Manchester City were fifth at the time – six points behind Arsenal, albeit with a game in hand, and finished champions for a fourth successive time.”
Pep Guardiola, in the middle of his most despondent run, has in fact done it twice, including in 2020-21 when City surged from eighth place. Others to chamber up post Christmas from outside contention are
Manchester United, leaping from fifth in 1996-97 and Arsenal (from sixth in 1997-98).
Guardiola’s City however sit on the 7th spot, which is made notorious by Norwich who were in that exact spot in 1994-95 Christmas, according to BBC, and went all the way down to relegation.
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