The Table Is Still Lying: Seven Weeks In, the xPoints Table Says City Are Lucky and Forest Are Cursed

The story in one line: The official table has Manchester City perfect on 21 points and Nottingham Forest second-bottom on five. Run every game back through a Poisson model on the underlying xG and City's lead is a mirage, Arsenal are the league's best team, and Forest should be tenth.

The true table (xPoints)

Exhibit 1

Manchester City have 21 points from 13.02 expected; Nottingham Forest have 5 from 11.42.

Expected points against points won, Premier League 2026/27, matchweeks 1-7

	Team	xPts	Actual	Gap
1	Arsenal	13.98	18	+4.02
2	Man City	13.02	21	+7.98
3	Bournemouth	11.44	6	-5.44
4	Forest	11.42	5	-6.42
5	Liverpool	11.28	12	+0.72
6	Brighton	10.96	16	+5.04
7	Fulham	10.04	5	-5.04
8	Man Utd	9.92	7	-2.92
9	Brentford	9.86	10	+0.14
10	Everton	9.41	10	+0.59
11	Chelsea	9.27	13	+3.73
12	Spurs	9.18	6	-3.18
13	Villa	8.68	8	-0.68
14	Ipswich	8.50	9	+0.50
15	Sunderland	8.37	4	-4.37
16	Leeds	8.12	10	+1.88
17	Newcastle	7.13	8	+0.87
18	Coventry	7.04	6	-1.04
19	Hull	6.99	9	+2.01
20	Palace	6.62	7	+0.38

Method: independent Poisson distributions on each side's Opta xG, scorelines 0-10, xPts = 3 × win probability + draw probability. The model assumes finishing is luck; over a season that is one of the safest assumptions in football.

City's perfect start is the luckiest in the league

Manchester City have won all seven games and banked 21 points from 13.02 xPts, an overperformance of 7.98, the largest gap in the league by nearly four points. Saturday's 3-2 over Ipswich was a fair win (xG 3.53 to 1.66, worth 2.31 xPts), which makes the rest of the run stand out more, not less: nine of those 21 points came from roughly 4.35 xPts across the United, Sunderland, and Coventry games two weeks ago. City are a good team, genuinely, but the table's perfect leaders are also the league's luckiest side. Arsenal, meanwhile, are the model's best team (13.98 xPts) and also running hot (+4.02). The title race is really between a very good lucky team and the best team in the country.

Forest are cursed, and the numbers agree

The model has Nottingham Forest fourth on 11.42 xPts, playing like a top-six side, with five points to show for it. They are the league's coldest finishers: 5 goals from 11.50 xG, an underperformance of 6.50, the worst in the division. The pain is specific. On Oct 11 they lost 3-1 to Crystal Palace while out-creating them 3.34 to 2.41. On Sep 19 they lost 1-0 to Coventry from an xG of 1.10 to 0.67. On opening week they lost 1-0 to Leeds from 0.66 to 0.47. Forest are doing the things that create wins and getting the results that create crises. If finishing variance is luck, and it mostly is, the table will come for Forest before Forest come for the table. They are owed more than six points.

The owed, and the costumes

Bournemouth (-5.44) battered Sunderland 2-0 on Sunday from an xG of 4.23 to 0.07, worth 2.95 xPts, the most deserved result of the weekend at 97.7% probability. Fulham (-5.04) finally won fairly, 1-0 over Hull from 1.38 to 0.16 (2.35 xPts). Sunderland (-4.37) sit on four points and managed 0.02 xPts on Sunday; some weeks the model barely notices you were there. Tottenham (-3.18) beat Coventry 3-1 on Monday in what the model reads as a coin flip: xG 0.86 to 0.77, xPts 1.40 to 1.25, a 35.1% result. Spurs finished three from under one xG and are somehow still owed points.

And then there are the costumes. Brighton (+5.04) put five past Palace on Sunday and sit on 16 points with 10.96 xPts, roughly a tenth-place team in a top-four costume (more on that game separately). Newcastle's fade is working: two weeks ago they were dead last on xPts (4.54) with eight points banked; now the model has them at 7.13 and the gap has collapsed from +3.46 to +0.87. The luck is draining out exactly on schedule. The least likely result of the season remains their 2-2 with Liverpool on Aug 23, drawn from an xG of 1.58 to 2.98 at 15.9%.

The edges

The model's best team the table underrates is Bournemouth, third on xPts and fifteenth on points. The worst team the table doesn't know is Manchester City, second on points and playing like a Europa League side. Finishing extremes do not persist; the edges above are exactly the kind that get priced in by November. Check back next week; we'll re-run the table and see who listened.

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Where the numbers come from

Every figure is computed from per-match Opta expected goals and results for 70 played Premier League 2026/27 matches (matchweeks 1-7, Aug 21 to Oct 19, 2026), queried live from the Dribble API on Oct 21, 2026. The Poisson model covers 69 matches (138 team performances); Brighton 1-1 Leeds United (Sep 5) carries no team xG rows and is excluded from the model while its official points stand in the actuals. Expected points come from independent Poisson distributions on each side's xG. No pundit vibes, no eye test.

Want the underlying data? The same xG feeds behind this model are available as BigQuery tables, API endpoints, and downloadable files. See plans and pricing