How the number of points required to win the Premier League title has gone up and up

It may not roll off the tongue but Arsenal are on course to be the third-best second-placed team in the history of the Premier League.

If Mikel Arteta’s win their final game of the season against Everton, they will finish the 2023-24 season on 89 points with a goal difference of at least +62.

Being one of the best-ever runners-up English football has ever seen will come as no consolation to those with a rooted interest in seeing Mikel Arteta’s team win the title, but it offers some context around how good they have been, even if they do fall short.

Of course, there is no guarantee that Manchester City will win the title on Sunday afternoon, but it does seem likely, with a fixture at home against West Ham the only thing standing in the way in the club’s quest to win a fourth successive crown. Arsenal can still win the title with a win, if City fail to beat West Ham.

Liverpool hold the record as the best team not to win the Premier League — accumulating 97 points in 2018-19 and 92 in 2021-22 but coming second in both campaigns. Manchester United managed 89 points in 2011-12, but their goal difference of +56 means Arsenal will pip them if they beat Everton at home in their final fixture, as the table below illustrates.

2023-24 is the 29th time the Premier League has comprised 20 teams — the three seasons between the league’s inception in 1992-93 and 1994-95 involved 22 teams. During the previous 28 seasons with 20 teams, the average number of points needed to win the title was 87 points.

Aspiring to reach a certain points total, like 40 points to avoid relegation, or 90 to win the title, is relative. Leicester won the league in 2015-16 with just 81 points, while Liverpool recorded 97 in 2018-19 and still saw another team win the title.

The margin for error for both Manchester City and Arsenal this season is essentially one game. If Arsenal had won just one of the five games they’ve drawn, they’d be heading into the final day on top of the table.

89 points and a goal difference of at least +62 may not be enough to win the title this season, but it would have got the job done in 16 of the last 28 seasons. Here are the Premier League champions that this season’s Arsenal would have finished above.

Manchester City, meanwhile, could win the title with one of their ‘poorer’ seasons under Pep Guardiola, who nonetheless stands on the cusp of winning his sixth league title in England. Assuming both City and Arsenal win on the final day, this title win would only be Guardiola’s third or fourth-most dominant triumph at City from a points and goal-difference perspective.

Arsenal’s 2023-24 season, assuming they beat Everton, will be the 14th-best performance in the Premier League’s 20-team era. Even if they draw against Everton, it will leave them with 87 points and a goal difference of +61, good for the 17th spot, while a defeat would be the 22nd-best individual campaign.

Below is a list of the most dominant individual seasons in the 20-team Premier League era, which for argument’s sake, assumes that both City and Arsenal win their final fixture 1-0 on Sunday.

When it comes to finishing second, the bar has consequentially been raised in recent years. Since Guardiola moved to the Premier League in 2016, the average number of points the team in second has accumulated in those eight seasons since is 85, higher than any other point in the Premier League era.

On average, from 1995-96 through to 2022-23, the team in second place completed the season with 81 points overall, but whoever finishes second this season will have a minimum of 86 points. As the graph below shows, it was the arrival of Jose Mourinho in 2004-05 that saw the required total for second place climb above 80 points for the first time, and it has fallen below that mark only five times since.

The average gap between the team in first and the team in second is usually seven points. This year, the maximum that gap can be is five points (if Manchester City win and Arsenal lose), and the minimum it can be is zero (if City draw and Arsenal win). Interestingly, this season has seen the smallest average gap — 1.51 points — between first and second throughout the season, the narrowest such margin in any Premier League campaign.

Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal are ticking all the boxes that need to be ticked. In a different era, they would have probably already had the title wrapped up heading into the final weekend of the season. But this is the era of extreme points inflation and — as Liverpool know all too well — seasonal club records can be set without any silverware to accompany it.

(Header photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)