One way of looking at it...

[Spurs1960]

:bang:

Does no one read my sig? It's exactly the thing you described!

Ranking the teams isn't that important, if Blackburn were the most improved team it wouldn't mean they were going to win the league, just that they'd have a better chance of finishing higher up. Working out the points per game improvement is ok but I think working in absolutes is more indicative. If we're 7 points ahead of schedule that would mean that all we'd have to do is match last seasons points in the remaining games to finish 4th.

I've also started to think about comparing results against the same team in the same season. For example, we've played ManU(a) and Liverpool(h) and so have Arsenal. We got 3pts and they got 0pts although at this stage in the season there's not many fixtures that teams have in common with each other.

No, nobody reads signatures.

The winners traditionally do well in the top 4 table (Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal) so within our own table of 4 fighting for 3rd & 4th (Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool) we have started well. Improve our consistency by not dropping silly points and a Champions League place would be ours to lose.

 

[Paolo10]

Let's just concentrate on the actual table and rocket up it, no?

:shrug:

 

[camaj]

No, nobody reads signatures.

The winners traditionally do well in the top 4 table (Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal) so within our own table of 4 fighting for 3rd & 4th (Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool) we have started well. Improve our consistency by not dropping silly points and a Champions League place would be ours to lose.

True but even when we finished 4th we dropped silly points (we should have finished 3rd that season!).

Let's just concentrate on the actual table and rocket up it, no?

:shrug:

Why?

If you say that it seems like you've missed the whole point. The actual table doesn't tell you how well a team is doing because everyone has played different teams. Bolton are bottom of the table with 3 points and Newcastle are 4th with 15. If we just concentrate on the "actual table" we'd say that Bolton have had a terrible start and Newcastle have had an amazing start. For all I know Bolton fans could be hoping for a new manager ASAP. However if you look at the results you see this:
QPR (a) W
ManC (h) L
Liverpool (a) L
ManU (h) L
Norwich (h) L
Arsenal (a) L
Chelsea (h) L

Out of those the only bad result is the Norwich game, everything else is pretty much in line with what we'd expect from Bolton.

Now lets look at the Newcastle results

Arsenal (h) D
Sunderland (a) W
Fulham (h) W
QPR (a) D
Villa (a) D
Blackburn (h) W
Wolves (a) W

The only unexpected result there is the Arsenal and that was against 10 men. The other wins are good but nothing that suggests Newcastle are an amazing team

So yes, we could look at the "actual table" but sadly it doesn't reflect reality it destorts it. The only time the "actual table" is worth anything is on the final day of the season when everyone has played identical fixtures. Until then we have to find ways of mitigating that distortion