NEWS NEWS BLOG SPORT looks at what the following year will have in store for teams depending on their position on New Year’s Day.
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| The last time Arsene Wenger's Arsenal failed to score at home in all competitions was back in August |
Statistics hold little truck with Arsene Wenger. "Everybody wants to predict who will win it at halfway but unfortunately even for the most intelligent people that is impossible," the Arsenal manager sniffed.
Actually, Arsene, it is hardly rocket science. These days, nearly nine times out of 10 the team top on New Year's Day lifts the Premier League crown. Unless, of course, it happens to be Arsenal, who on average finish a disappointing third. That is a serious discrepancy, but one that Wenger refuses to face up to.
"I will remind you that only one team won the league without losing a game," Wenger counters when the omens are put to him. "That is Arsenal Football Club."
By clinging to the 2003-4 Invincibles year, Wenger is being as desperate as he is irrelevant.
Manchester United in fact topped the league table on January 1, 2004 and Arsenal, as they have done throughout their history, overtook the New Year leaders in the second half of the season. Seven of their last 10 titles have been won in the same manner.
Wenger, nevertheless, is adamant he would prefer to be top of the table at this stage of the season.
"Before, being top on goal difference doesn't make a big difference, it is just down to how well you play," he said. "You have to be guided by your performances.
"After that, though, it is reassuring to know that if your performances are right you do not need bad results from somebody else. That is one less stress. Once you are first you can just focus on your performance."
Time, as ever, will tell. But what other hints can the New Year's table give to fans keen to maintain the success of 2015 or desperate to see the back of it?
Tottenham can expect absolutely no change of fortune with the change of the years. It is 13 years since the Premier League were awarded a fourth qualification place to the Champions League. Since then, the fourth-placed team on January 1 has qualified for the Champions League on seven occasions, missing out on six.
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| Leicester go in to the New Year level on points with Arsenal |
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| Mauricio Pochettino's Tottenham have been hugely impressive, losing a joint-low two league games |
So it will be the usual nail-biting "will they, won't they" finale to the season for the White Hart Lane faithful, it seems, as they continue their hunt for entry into Europe's elite competition, satisfied only twice in 54 years.
By contrast, there is an overwhelming probability it will be great news on that score for Leicester fans. Since 2003, every single team in the top three on New Year's Day has finished in those coveted top four places - bar one.
When it became mathematically impossible for Bolton, third on January 1, 2007, to finish in the top four, Sam Allardyce was so upset at becoming the exception to prove the rule that he quit his job as Wanderers manager. Today, as the Sunderland boss, he will be more anxious to discover what the New Year table means for clubs in the bottom three.
A decade ago, Allardyce would have had cause for concern. Between 2000 and 2007, only five of a total of 24 teams occupying the bottom three survived the cull.
Since then, the picture is rosier. On average, since 2008, the 24 teams in most peril halfway through the season have been slightly more likely to beat the drop than not. Big Sam's glass can be slightly half-full then.
Villa manager Remi Garde should be less hopeful. In all bar three seasons since the Premier League began, the team bottom on New Year's Day has been relegated.
Steve McClaren has reason to cheer though - only one team, Fulham, have been relegated from 18th place on January 1 in the last 10 seasons.
Of course, this season has been harder to predict than most, with the so-called small clubs doing surprisingly well while the defending champions languish in the bottom half of the table. Surely, though, Chelsea cannot suffer another annus quite so horribilis in 2016 as the second half of 2015 has been?
Sadly, one final statistic that jumps out of the analysis - a recent trend that you would not necessarily predict. A weird phenomenon that has already caught out Norwich, Burnley, and Newcastle.
Three times in the last seven years, the team 14th on January 1 has been relegated. A precarious position indeed.
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