Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal Run-ins Analysed – Fixture Density and Intensity

The punishing pinch points of 2023/24

This is a preview outline and some highlights of parts of an article I’ll finish and publish later in the week on the TTT Main Hub, to follow the previous piece (linked to in this sentence).

For now, I'll share this with paying ZenDen subscribers.

In analysing all difficult runs of fixtures in the past two and a half seasons for Liverpool, Man City and Arsenal (plus Newcastle, for reasons I’ll get onto), one stands out far above all others in terms of difficulty of opposition, lack of time between games and the number of points won: Liverpool, in 2021/22, with the 12 games up to 14th May 2022. (More on that later.)

My aim, in undertaking a mini study, was to find a way to more accurately predict run-in results, even if nothing can ever be properly foreseen. With every passing year, the Premier League gets more physically demanding.

I have also looked at the full seasons (and 2023/24 to date) of some of the top teams from the past three years and found a clear pattern as to what gap between games is the most prolific, comparing three, four, five and +5 day intervals.

Also, people saying City will go on 10-20 winning streak (it must have been mentioned half a dozen times by TNT’s Darren Fletcher on a gushing commentary in the Newcastle game) ignores the incredibly intense and dense fixtures they have awaiting this season, and how they haven't been as good against better teams so far in 2023/24.

That said, they may still go on a huge winning run, of course; but we have to look at previous winning runs, to see how tough they actually were. Last season’s, for example, had an incredibly beneficial set of fixtures that they won’t have this time around.

And generally, bar Liverpool in 2021/22, there’s a point where the fixtures get so dense and intense that the ppg has to drop – as I noted in a recent piece introducing the concept, when looking at Newcastle as a starting point (to contrast last season's relative dominance, with this season’s collapse).

If City have all their best players fit and Liverpool and Arsenal do not, then that can change things. And vice versa.