The 2024/25 Premier League isn't Weak, it's Very, Very Strong

Liverpool are going to win the Premier League without having to contest too much of a title race. Is this the sign of a weak league? Absolutely not.

Data correct on April 17, 2025

To the surprise of nobody, bad actors in football media are rushing to paint Liverpool as stumbling towards the title. As they are ‘only’ going to win the Premier League, their campaign must be considered something of a flop.

Yet if this season has not been miraculous, Arne Slot has performed remarkably. He had to replace a legend, doing so with little in the way of transfer activity. At least Jürgen Klopp had the good grace to bequeath a strong squad to his successor, unlike Alex Ferguson.

Perhaps the pundits are embarrassed at their pre-season failure to predict that the Reds would even compete for the title, much less win the damn thing. It can’t be the media who are wrong, obviously. They were off the mark because the league is so weak. It’s the only explanation. Liverpool have had it too easy, they wouldn’t have stood a chance of the gold medal otherwise.

It’s been the same all season. Firstly they hadn’t played anyone of note. Then once they had (mostly at Anfield), the chasing pack were going to have a chance because the Reds hadn’t contested many away games against top half sides.

While they haven’t won many such matches since, nobody does; unsurprisingly it’s hard to beat the best teams on their own patch. Only Fulham have won more away games against current top half sides than Liverpool this term, even then by only three to two:

Liverpool Data

Paul Tomkins wrote an article last month which showed that Slot’s men have a ridiculously good record against the strongest teams they have faced, powerful evidence of their excellence. Cup defeats to Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle since the piece was published don’t lessen the general theme as it stood in early March:

“Excluding the reserves and kids who played at PSV in a dead rubber, Liverpool, currently ranked #1 in the Club Elo Index of European football (by some margin), have played 22 games against teams ranked in the 29 places directly below.

They have won 16, drawn four, lost two – a staggering return… That’s an insane 72.7% win percentage.

If you’re unfamiliar with Club Elo, it’s a system for rating teams based on their results against the standard of opponents they face (full explanation here). For instance, Liverpool earned 0.8 points for beating Southampton at Anfield but 10.5 from their victory at the Etihad. By compiling these statistics for all clubs, it’s possible to compare teams across leagues throughout their history.

Using the ratings for teams in the Premier League, we can establish the relative strength of the class of 2024/25 compared to their predecessors. Is it a weak league as has been widely suggested?

I wrote about this five years ago, compiling the average Elo score for the teams in each Premier League season as presented below. The peak was 2007/08, which is reasonable considering the Champions League final was an all-English affair with Liverpool one of the beaten semi-finalists.

With Manchester City banking 100 points as Liverpool became kings of Europe, the Elo average in the league was again lifted towards those levels in 2019. It’s definitely worth a comparison with today.

The rest of this article is currently for paid subscribers. The paywall will come off once Liverpool are confirmed as champions. Sign up now to save yourself the wait.