Aston Villa and Sunderland have almost certainly achieved their season objectives already, with Opta giving Villa a 96% chance of Champions League football and the Black Cats a 99% chance of survival.
This isn’t about whether the two sides ‘deserve’ to be where they are in the table. The fact that they’ve scored and kept out the goals they have means they have earned those positions, thanks in part to Villa’s elite long-range finishing and Sunderland keeper Robin Roefs being the best shot-stopper in the league.
But what it does show is that this season’s success is built on shaky ground and there’s still work to be done if Villa wish to establish themselves at the top of the Premier League long-term and Sunderland are to avoid suffering second-season syndrome next season.
Villa fans will rightly point out that their team has regularly overperformed their xG under Unai Emery, while Sunderland fans will claim that you can’t measure tenacity and togetherness.
But if we look at the points and xG difference of the 200 Premier League teams in the past decade, it really shows how freakishly efficient the two sides have been in taking as many points as they have this season, with their dots in the chart far from the rest.
