There used to be pushback against any media outlet that had the audacity to publish a league table before there were four matches on the board.
Maybe the reason nobody minds anymore reflects our expectation of content churn in the social media age. But maybe it’s because the financial disparities in the Premier League make the table intelligible within the first fortnight.
Two games into the 2024/25 season the three title favourites Manchester City, Arsenal, and Liverpool are joint-top of the league; fifth to 13th are bunched together in a blob that will more or less stay that way; and the expected relegation candidates are scrabbling around for points at the bottom.
Save for Brighton’s 100% record and Nottingham Forest up in seventh the table already looks like a premonition of May.
That is bad news for the newly promoted sides, who between them have accrued one point from six matches – and that was Leicester's stolen draw against a Tottenham side that could have been 3-0 up at half-time.
We could have seen this coming, and not just because it’s happening with increasing regularity. Last season all three promoted clubs – Burnley, Luton and Sheffield United – went straight back down, and although it was the first time that had happened since 1997/98 it still followed a trend.
More and more often, those who come up are at too great a financial disadvantage to compete.
It definitely looks that way this year.
Leicester are very weak in the forward line. They are already relying on 36-year-old Jamie Vardy and 19-year-old Facundo Buonanotte, which explains why only Ipswich have had fewer than their 17 shots on goal so far.
When you add that to a possible points deduction coming down the line, and consider Leicester lost manager Enzo Maresca and star play Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall over the summer, Steve Cooper has an almost impossible job keeping them up without major reinforcements up front.
Southampton also seem doomed.
Russell Martin’s aesthetic possession football has only every produced par performances, be it at MK Dons, Swansea, or Southampton in the Championship, and frankly we have seen enough from two games in the top-flight to confirm it is the wrong approach for a promoted club to take.
They held 65% possession against Forest but managed just five shots with a combined xG of 0.1, prompting Martin to comment on the tension inside the stadium.
Supporters aren’t going to relax any time soon. They know how this one goes.
Ipswich's prospects appear better than the other two, although admittedly optimism about their plucky fighting spirit is predominantly because they are still an unknown entity upon which we can continue to project whatever we want.
They were valiant against both Liverpool and Manchester City but never stood a chance in either fixture.
Their season begins on Saturday with a home game against Fulham, when a set of players recently in League One look to take on Emile Smith Rowe, Andreas Pereira, and Adama Traore.
The gulf feels huge in a way it never has before - and that applies to Southampton and Leicester, too.
Forest’s victory over Southampton was a telling game.
They are arguably the most likely side to get sucked into the relegation fight and yet Nuno Espirito Santo’s side were significantly better than Saints, the comparison between the sides made stark by the appearance of Morgan Gibbs-White, Anthony Elanga, and Callum Hudson-Odoi.
None of the promoted clubs have a single attacker as good as any of those three.
It’s a sign of what Premier League stability brings these days.
What about the 'established' clubs?
Elsewhere Brentford, Bournemouth, Wolves and Crystal Palace all have excellent managers and star players streets ahead of those at the promoted clubs.
We don’t need to name them. It is self-evident, and therefore even those making winless starts have no real reason to worry about relegation.
The only spanner in the works is Everton, but even they appear to hold an advantage.
Sean Dyche is a very safe pair of hands and indeed he won just one point from the first five Premier League matches of last season before turning things around.
You expect a Dyche team to start grinding out wins at some point, especially with Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Dwight McNeil, and James Tarkowski in their ranks.
Again, who among the promoted clubs has players anywhere near that standard?
Over the past couple of years the Premier League’s bottom-half clubs have really pulled themselves together.
The fire-fighter managers are gone. Up-and-coming coaches from around Europe are in vogue, and their presence has made the Premier League a more attractive destination than ever before.
Bournemouth convincing Evanilson to swap Champions League football at Porto for life on the south coast says it all.
We may well be on the verge of consecutive years of the promoted clubs going back down, and make no mistake this would be a disaster for the Premier League.
Every year that happens the other 17 grow richer and more stable, in turn making them more attractive to talented young players around Europe willing to play mid-table football in exchange for huge wages in the shop window.
A few consecutive years of this, and the Premier League risks losing relegation as a serious part of the competition.
Granted, two games into the 2024/25 season is too early for such a dramatic conclusion. But two games into the season and the league table already looks set.
Let’s hope it isn’t.
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