Arsenal Are Five Points Clear With Fewer Goals Than Five Other Teams — and the Only Two Sides Before Them on 27 Points After 10 Games Both Missed the Title

Arsenal go into the international break five points clear at the top of the Premier League, with nine wins from 10 games and 27 points. Five other teams have scored more goals. The champions have 15, the same as 14th-placed Ipswich Town and fewer than Brighton (26), Manchester City (21), Chelsea (19), Bournemouth (16) and Brentford (16). Arsenal are top because of what they have stopped. They have conceded five goals in 10 games, the fewest in the league.

That approach has produced a run of narrow wins. Their last two league games were both 1-0, at Anfield on Nov. 1 and at home to Hull City on Saturday. Their only league defeat came at Brighton in September, and they have won every league game since.

On paper, 27 points from 10 games is a title-winning pace. BBC Sport's numbers show that the average champion has 23 points at this stage, and only four teams in Premier League history have taken more than 27 from their first 10 games. All four went on to win the league.

There is a catch. According to BBC Sport, only two previous teams have had exactly 27 points after 10 games, and neither won the title. One of them was Arsenal in 2022-23, when Mikel Arteta's side led for much of the season and finished second to Manchester City.

The wider record is mixed too. In 15 of the 34 Premier League seasons so far, the team top after 10 games went on to win the title, which is less than half the time.

Brighton are second on 22 points with the league's best goal difference by a distance: plus-19, from 26 scored and seven conceded. Arsenal are at plus-10. Fabian Hürzeler's side have scored 11 more goals than the leaders and conceded only two more.

History is less kind to them. BBC Sport noted that the team in second after 10 games has won the title in just one of the past 18 seasons, Manchester City in 2022-23, the season Arsenal had 27 points at this stage.

Opta's supercomputer agrees that the gap matters more than the goal difference. It gives Arsenal a 75% chance of retaining the title, Manchester City 14% despite three straight league defeats, and Brighton 7.5%. A Brighton title would make them the biggest outsiders to win the league since Leicester City in 2016.

Fifteen goals in 10 games is 1.5 per match. That is not a champion's scoring rate, and it leaves Arsenal little room for mistakes. This season the defense is doing the work. Five goals conceded works out to half a goal per game, and in a 1-0 season that is the difference between three points and one.

The schedule after the break doesn't help. Arsenal go to Newcastle on Saturday, Nov. 21, and Brighton visit Hull City the following day.

None of these numbers decides the title, and the fewest points any eventual champion has had at this stage is 18, which keeps Liverpool, on 18, in the conversation. But the last Arsenal side with 27 points after 10 games is the warning. That team had the points and lost the title. This one has the best defense in the league, and the next 28 games will show whether that is enough when the attack is producing only 1.5 goals a game.