After two games, it’s incredibly hard to pick up reliable signals about team quality beyond what we already know, but it is possible to get hints about what might happen as the season progresses.
We can also be fooled. When Swansea opened up the 2015/16 campaign with two wins and two draws, they looked well set. They had the better of the chances in draws at Chelsea and Sunderland, had beaten Newcastle easily at home and edged a close game against Manchester United. On the surface and at the time, it looked like they were progressing further off the back of their eighth-place finish in 2014/15. However, a run of one win in 11 heading towards Christmas meant Garry Monk was sacked and the season became a struggle.
Only with hindsight could we deconstruct those early results and see how they may have flattered Swansea. Although reigning champions, Chelsea proceeded to perform extremely poorly as the autumn wore on, leading to Jose Mourinho’s dismissal, while Sunderland and Newcastle battled relegation throughout the campaign.
These were not teams in good shape. A low shot event match against Manchester United in which the result could swing either way became quite a hallmark of Louis van Gaal’s reign, too. It was already possible to scratch beneath the surface and see that Swansea’s prior eighth-place finish had occurred despite less than impressive shooting metrics, but here a very small sample of games further clouded their actual residual quality. That’s a problem for analysis at the start of a season, and why longer trends are usually better to monitor.
Bournemouth
Here is a case in point. Bournemouth have had a particularly bad start to the season, losing two games against teams who occupy a similar expected position to them in the table, West Brom and Watford.
On the surface, these losses may not appear too disappointing, but there are reasons for early concern. Next up are Manchester City, followed by a trip to Arsenal, while trips to Everton and Tottenham and the visit of Chelsea all form part of the Cherries' first 10 games. That’s a hard opening schedule and there's good reason to suspect they won’t get too much out of it.
In their two seasons in the Premier League, Bournemouth have collected six (2015/16) and seven (2016/17) points against the big-six teams and have lost both games away to Everton, the last one a crushing 6-3. It’s therefore imperative that Bournemouth get points against the lesser teams, and they’re already behind on that count.
Beyond that, the style of the defeats has been underwhelming. In both games Bournemouth haven’t created much in the way of attack and have allowed far too many opportunities to their opponents. They managed just eight shots against West Brom and six against Watford and scarcely troubled their opponent’s goalkeepers.
Last season, their attack was the element that moved forward, while the defence remained vulnerable. They really cannot afford for goals to dry up and they will certainly need to get some positive results from their next few games against the mid-to-lower teams. A south coast derby against Brighton on 15 September already feels like it could be a vital fixture, perhaps for both teams.
However, if we look back at Bournemouth’s two previous seasons in the Premier League, it turns out they lost their opening two games on both occasions. Indeed, in 2015/16 Eddie Howe's side only won two of their opening 12 matches, then improved in 2016/17 to start 4-3-5 (W-D-L).
Beyond that, even in their promotion season from the Championship, they finished August with a 2-1-2 record and were only ninth in the standings after 12 matches. They subsequently lost only four more games all season and went up as champions. Is it plausible to surmise that Howe’s methods don’t get the best out of his teams in the early season, but make up for it later on?
Margins remain fine, though, and the question remains: will a slow start in this Premier League season put Bournemouth in the relegation picture? It’s too early to tell, but it's one to keep an eye on.
Watford
Bournemouth’s weekend conquerors were Watford, whose start to the season has enough about it to raise the proverbial eyebrow. A draw with Liverpool on the opening weekend was solid if slightly fortunate, but the way the Hornets thoroughly dominated Bournemouth suggested they might actually be quite good this term.
The simple observation to make is that, from this season to last, Watford have made a huge upgrade in managerial talent by swapping Walter Mazzarri for Marco Silva. The latter may have failed to rescue Hull from relegation, but he did turn them from clearly the worst team in the league to an outfit who picked up over a point per game across his 18 matches at the helm.
At the Vitality Stadium, Watford took more shots than in all but five of their 2016/17 matches, and allowed fewer than in all but one. Could Silva, with a pre-season under his belt and better talent at his disposal than at Hull, lift Watford into the top half? Only six points separated Southampton in eighth and the Hornets in 17th last season, so it doesn’t feel an unrealistic for them to target the top 10. More performances of this ilk will certainly aid their cause.
Numbers via InStat
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