The Premier League is regarded by most as the hardest league to win in football. Although Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletico Madrid and Bayern Munich can lay claim to being powerhouses of European football today; since 1992, the Premier League has produced 4 Champions League winners, and consistent and quality football.
The league is tougher than others because of the depth it has. Although there are a group of teams who regularly finish at the top, everyone beats everyone, and it takes a special team to win it. In the current season Burnley, newly promoted from the Championship – the second division – beat Liverpool, while Watford, whose spend on their entire team cost less than one Manchester United player, were victors – 3-1 – when those two sides met.
The fact that Manchester United in the early and late 90s won the title on a consistent basis is a testament to Sir Alex Ferguson and the squads he assembled. It’s a similar story for Arsenal in the early 2000s – which managed to once go undefeated for an entire season – and Chelsea of the mid 2000s.
While United and Arsenal were lauded for their aesthetically pleasing football – a style which has most often been linked with quick, attacking play – Chelsea have been a consistently defensive side, winning the title in 2004-05 while conceding just 15 goals.
All styles of play are unique to each football club, but, broadly, they can be categorized into attacking, defensive and balanced play. As an example, Chelsea generally play a defensive style, while Manchester City, current leaders of the Premier League, play a very attacking, controlling style, meaning they score a lot of goals.
But since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, what has it taken to win the title?
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On the above graph, every title-winning team’s final points tally, as well as goals scored and conceded are shown. Obviously, the difference between goals scored and conceded is high, as you need to score a lot, and concede few, to win the title.
But which one matters more?
Well, if one analyses the trends of the graph, one thing is clear: there is a high correlation between goals conceded and final points tally.
Take Chelsea in 2004-05 for example. They conceded just 15 league goals all season, as a back five of Petr Cech, John Terry, Ricardo Carvahlo, Paulo Fererria and Wayne Bridge, combined with the powerful midfielder Claude Makelele, kept every team out. If you exclude the two matches they played against runners-up Arsenal, Chelsea conceded just 11 goals in 36 matches, a remarkable record, and easily the lowest ever, in the Premier League.
This can be matched up to their final points tally – 95 – another record. Next season, when Chelsea also won the title, they conceded 22 goals, while scoring 72 – the same as the season before. The extra seven goals resulted in their final points tally dipping to 91. Over the next few years, it becomes evident that as the number of goals conceded goes up, the final points tally for title winning teams in this period goes down.
The counter-argument to this is that if teams can produce good attacking football, it can blow teams away more than cagey, defensive football can. This is true to an extent. Twice in a season, two teams (Chelsea 2009-10 and Manchester City 2013-14) have scored 100+ goals in a season.
In the 2013-14 season, City also only conceded 34 goals. Liverpool, who scored 102 goals as well, finished second, on the basis that they conceded 50 goals.
Further, a team known for it’s attacking football, Arsenal, have won three Premier League titles, however, they won them in their three best defensive seasons. Even the Invincibles side of 2003-04, renowned for their swashbuckling football, only scored 72, while conceding just 28.
Football is about both attack and defence, but if you look at the best Premier League teams of the modern era, all of them have been built on a rock solid defence. Whether it’s the new Terry or Cole, Campbell or Vidic, the secret to winning the toughest league in the world is simple: buy some defenders.
