“Another international break, already? Haven’t we just had one?” Fear not — it does give us another opportunity to check on the state of the Premier League. We are already 21 per cent of the way through the 2023-24 campaign, but there is plenty more drama, VAR controversy, and elongated stoppage time to unfold.

With that in mind, a glance at the league table after eight games is still unlikely to reveal too many reliable clues about the final standings, but we can start to put things into a little more context from the games played so far.

To do this, we can look at each side’s expected goal (xG) difference per game to assess the quality of chances they have created and conceded across the first chunk of the season.

With fewer than 10 games played, this is a more reliable method to assess the performance of a team by considering the intent from each side, placing less importance on the unlucky deflection or — cough — bad refereeing decisions that might have influenced the result. So, let’s dive in.

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