The importance of a fast start to Premier League success

As football fans, we have been treated to a magnificent summer of World Cup action, but it won’t be long until our attention returns to the club game once more. With that in mind, we at kickoff.co.uk wanted to investigate just how important it is to make a fast start if you want to be crowned Premier League champions come May.

The Slow Starters

Since the invention of football in 1992 (just joking!), only seven of the 34 English champions have averaged less than two points per game over the course of their first ten top-flight matches:

Somewhat unsurprisingly, these points per game figures are down on their season averages in all seven cases, with only the 1996/97 Manchester United team failing to crack the two points per game mark for the entire campaign. Given these slow starts, you could have been forgiven for thinking that each of these title races went down to the wire, yet only one was settled by fewer than five points (Manchester City by two points in 2013/14), with an average gap to second place of 7.57 points.

The Greyhounds

In contrast to the slow starters, ten title winners have absolutely shot out of the traps, averaging at least 2.50 points per game over the course of their first ten top-flight matches:

Of these ten champions, none have maintained this points per game average over the entirety of a Premier League campaign, though Manchester City came exceedingly close to doing so back in 2018/19 when their points per game for the season was an extremely healthy 2.58.

Most interestingly, perhaps, is the fact that half of these occurrences have taken place in the last nine seasons. Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City side certainly set the bar high, racking up 100 points in a dominant 2017/18 title success and following that up with 98 points in 2018/19 as they edged out Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool by just a single point. The Merseyside outfit were not to be denied for long, however, securing a first top-flight title since 1990 with a tally of 99 points in 2019/20. These incredible tallies were achieved on the back of fast starts and owed much to the perception that any dropped points could cost you dearly, which was indeed the case for runners-up Liverpool in 2018/19.

Summary

From the data, it is clear that there is more than one way to win a Premier League title. That said, the old tortoise and hare routine has only paid dividends once in the last ten campaigns (Manchester City in 2020/21), whereas five teams have been crowned champions after flying out of the blocks during the same period. Given the emphasis that is placed upon making marginal gains in modern football, it would certainly make sense to target a fast start for those clubs with designs on winning the top-flight title.