Ryan O’HanlonCloseRyan O’HanlonESPN.com writerRyan O’Hanlon is a staff writer for ESPN.com. He’s also the author of “Net Gains: Inside the Beautiful Game’s Analytics Revolution.”Follow on X and Bill ConnellyCloseBill ConnellyESPN Staff WriterBill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.Follow on XMultiple AuthorsFeb 5, 2026, 07:33 AM ET
Pep Guardiola thinks Arsenal could be the ‘best team in the world’ (0:55)Pep Guardiola looks ahead to Manchester City’s Carabao Cup final vs. Arsenal. (0:55)
Arsenal: Still the best, and possibly getting better
Brentford and Aston Villa have turned their seasons around
When we last did these rankings, two weeks before Halloween, Crystal Palace’s Oliver Glasner had just been named manager of the month for September. Ruben Amorim was in the middle of guiding Manchester United through a stretch that would earn him October’s manager of the month honors. And he would be followed up by Enzo Maresca, whose Chelsea won three and drew one in November.
Now, it’s early February. Both Maresca and Amorim have been fired by their clubs, and Glasner has publicly stated that he will be leaving his club. Oh, and the current reigning manager of the month? Unai Emery, who is managing the team we ranked 13th the last time we did this.
A lot has happened over the last three-and-a-half months, so we’re back to make sense of it all in the only way we know how: by ranking every Premier League team, from 1 down to 20.
Our re-rankings — the combination of the individual rankings from Bill and Ryan — are listed along with the last rankings from October, and each team’s present points total and goal differential in the Premier League table.
If we strip out penalties and set pieces, then this is how everyone in the Premier League stacks up by their expected-goal differential:
In fact, that’s not too different from what markets and projection systems expected before the season: Arsenal and Liverpool battling it out at the top, with Manchester City just slightly behind.
Put it all together, and Arsenal have easily been the best team in the Premier League through the first 24 matches:
If you’re wondering why most Premier League teams have become obsessed with the moments when the ball goes out of play or the ref blows his whistle, then this is your answer: it’s enough to take you from being one of the best teams in the Premier League to being the clear number one.
Or: it’s enough to build a six-point lead over second place, despite the fact that the three strikers on your roster have combined to score six non-penalty goals in the league this season. Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus have combined for two starts in the league this season, and Jesus has scored two non-penalty goals.
Of course, Havertz was supposed to become more of a secondary figure this season after the club spent a lot of money to bring in Viktor Gyökeres from Sporting Lisbon over the summer. Gyokeres has scored four non-penalty goals and registered zero assists across 18 starts. Despite playing a lot of minutes, he ranks 34th in the league for non-penalty expected goals and assists.
If we look at the numbers on a per-90 basis, Gyokeres’ underlying attacking performance is roughly the same as that of Mikel Merino, last season’s emergency striker who was never supposed to play that position again after the club signed Gyokeres. And yet, Gyokeres has played six games so far against Tottenham, the Manchester clubs, Chelsea, and Liverpool, and he’s attempted one shot in those games.
The only reason there’s even still a semblance of a title race is because Arsenal aren’t getting any consistent production from the player in the center of their front three. If they ever do, then it might be a long time until somebody else catches them at the top. — Ryan O’Hanlon
It’s never personal — it’s just how things go when the club that once ran the Premier League is falling to eighth in the table one year, then to 15th the next.
United rose from 11th to eighth in our October re-rank, however — and despite mercifully sacking Ruben Amorim in early January — they’ve made another charge in the months since. They beat Manchester City and Arsenal back-to-back under interim coach Michael Carrick, sure, but even going further back than that, they’ve lost just twice in league play since September, and their expected goals differential for the season ranks third.
This is a verifiably good team, one that has a 49.1% chance of a top-five finish (and likely Champions League berth) per the Opta supercomputer, and a 59.3% chance per xStandings.
Carrick’s sample is far too small to judge with statistical rigor, and they’ve won these last three matches with pure directness — they’ve scored eight goals while averaging just 19 touches per match in the opponent’s box (opponents are averaging 29.7). There’s been a dose of good fortune in this streak, with Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha and Patrick Dorgu combining for six goals from shots worth 2.2 xG.
But the results haven’t just been lucky. Casemiro has looked very comfortable at the base of Carrick’s 4-2-3-1 system, and we knew from his time at Brentford that Mbeumo is dynamite in transition.
Be it through Amorim’s three-at-the-back approach or Carrick’s adjustments, United have been the best quick-strike team in the Premier League this season. They’re fifth in ball recoveries, but they’re first in both shots (15) and goals scored from ball recoveries (five); they’re fourth in high turnovers created, but they’re first in goals scored from them (16).
They have attempted by far the most first-time shots in the league (207) — meaning, they find openings and immediately try to exploit them. And while this still isn’t a particularly disruptive or physical defense, they’ve erased their old tendency of allowing opponents loads of shot attempts: Per possession, they’re currently second in shots and fourth in shots allowed.
Ogden: Carrick’s success is creating a problem for Man United’s hierarchy
Plenty of people in our line of work have attempted to immediately parlay this happy three-match run into “Are United title threats?!” headlines, and … no. They’re not. They’re 12 points behind Arsenal with 14 games to play, and their title odds are well under 1%.
But honestly, fans should treat that as a good thing. The day-to-day life of a Manchester United fan appears to be existentially exhausting, a nonstop ride of overreaction and resetting of expectations.
Sure, they’ve got a Champions League berth to play for — and lord knows the “Should Carrick become the full-time manager?!” headlines aren’t going to stop if they keep playing like this* — but at this moment they’re playing fun, fast, entertaining and semi-sustainable ball. For a little while, at least, that should be enough.
(*My own opinion: Sure, give him the full-time job. It’s fine. He’s a smart guy, former holding midfielders can make excellent coaches, he was decent in two-and-a-half seasons at Middlesbrough, people who are frequently wrong think it’s a bad idea, and hey, the manager doesn’t matter as much as he used to, anyway, right?) — Bill Connelly
At the time of the last re-rank, Aston Villa and Brentford were 13th and 16th, respectively, in the Premier League table and 13th and 14th on our list. Villa couldn’t generate decent scoring chances to save their lives (they were 16th in goals and 19th in xG created at that point), and Brentford couldn’t keep opponents from scoring (16th in goals allowed, 14th in xG allowed).
Villa have matched Arsenal with 37 points over the last 17 matchdays, while Brentford have been exceeded only by Villa, Arsenal and the Manchester clubs. Have they actually been among the five best teams in this span? Probably not. Villa’s plus-10 goal differential in these 17 matches has come from an xG differential of plus-0.6, and they’ve managed to win six games (with three draws) in matches with a negative xG differential. That’s awfully tough to sustain.
Villa have done a lovely job of stockpiling points of late, even if there was some good fortune involved. The Premier League is exceedingly likely to earn a fifth Champions League spot this season via the coefficient table across Europe — and Villa, at 46 points, are as close to first-place Arsenal (53) as sixth-place Liverpool (39).
But Villa have a couple of different concerns at the moment. First, vengeance from the god of xG could be coming for them:
Even more worrisome than the stats are the midfield injuries. There are so damn many of them. Boubacar Kamara is out for the season (knee), Youri Tielemans (ankle) and John McGinn (knee) are out for a few more weeks, Ross Barkley (knee) is out, and Amadou Onana’s minutes are being managed because of muscle fatigue.
Villa added three players during the January transfer window, but only one — Juventus loanee Douglas Luiz, who was with Villa through 2023-24 — is, by trade, a midfielder. Villa’s next three league matches are against the teams ranked ninth through 11th above. Depending on what they get from a makeshift midfield, all three games are both winnable and losable.
Villa did make some short-term moves in January to theoretically shore up their top-five odds but Brentford, on the other hand, are not a short-term team.
Opta’s super computer now gives the Bees a 42% chance of finishing in the top seven, which would likely earn them a first ever spot in a European competition. But the next three matches will make a huge impact on those odds, one way or the other: They visit Newcastle on Saturday, then host Arsenal and Brighton. — Connelly
Let me take you back to the middle of October, when we last did these rankings. It was a time when there were three Premier League teams with a non-penalty xG differential of plus-4 or better: Arsenal, Manchester City, and Crystal Palace.
Come early December, they were crashing the party. A 2-1 win over Fulham moved them into fourth place, and they weren’t lucky to be there, either. Fifteen games into the season, only Arsenal, Manchester City, and Liverpool had produced better xG differentials.