Top 7 Theory.

The Top 7 Clubs and the rest of the Premier League.

By the top 7 clubs, I mean the big money established Premier League clubs - Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Liverpool and Everton. I know that Southampton are in the top 7 at the moment, but they are the only team to challenge the "establishment".

So, I have tried to work out how important games really are for the other 13 teams aginst the top 7. Even at this early stage of the season, its amazing how little the rest of the league gets - it is almost as if there are 2 divisions within the Premier League.

So far this season, there have been 45 fixtures between the top 7 and the rest. The record for "the rest" is :-

Played 45 Won 6 Drawn 8 Lost 31

No wonder we see any points against the big teams as a bonus! I didn't expect this level of domination. Perhaps when we have another wet Sunday afternoon I'll go through the stats for a whole season!

When you break things down club by club, our 1 win, one draw and 2 defeats is pretty good. Hull have lost all 4 of theirs, Sunderland all 3 of theirs, and Fulham both of theirs. Southampton are the only team to be unbeaten, but they have only played 2 games against the top 7 - this could also explain why they found themselves in 3rd place! Villa must have really upset the fixture list gods as they have had 6 of their first 9 matches against the top 7. 2 wins and 4 losses seems pretty fair in the circumstances for them.

So, Villa have take 6 points from 18, West Brom 5 from 12, us 4 from 12 and Southampton 4 from 6. Not too bad, really. So the other 9 teams have a worse record than us. Avoiding relegation will be achieved against "the rest". So lets not panic at the end of November when we have consecutive home games against Man Utd and Arsenal!