How many points win the title?

Looking at the points totals that Arsenal need to win the title

Is it 88, is 90, could it be 85?

Just how many points do Arsenal need to realistically win the title this season. This is something that seems to come up fairly often so I thought it would be good to see what the projection model says for this.

Before getting too far, I am making the assumption that Manchester City will have no points deducted this season for their 100+ charges of breaking financial rules and failing to cooperate with Premier League investigators.

If we want to guarantee things fully the number is 97 points.

That is the Magic Number that guarantees no team can finish above Arsenal even if they were to win every remaining match. In reality, it is 98 points because for this to come into play would take Arsenal losing both matches to Manchester City (because they win all the matches) so Arsenal would also have to win all the other matches they played, because if it is 15 wins, a draw, and 2 losses to City that puts 96 points as potential tie situation and Manchester City could (and probably would) have a superior goal difference after winning 17 matches in a row.

Thankfully this is a pretty remote possibility with this only happening in 8 out of 10,000 simulations.

So let’s instead look at the average points total for the team that wins the title. In the simulation after the weekend that is now 86.6 points.

The most common points totals for the title currently are 85 to 88 points.

85 to 86 points is the average but those are not great points targets for guaranteeing a title.

85 points is the title-winning tally 9% of the time but that point total only wins the title about 40% of the time. 86 points is a bit better going to just under 50% of the time.

Right now the real threshold for the title really looks like it is 88+ points.

At 88 points, that total is projected to win the title about two-thirds of the time, an additional point pushes the times that wins the title to three-quarters.

So to answer the initial question, I think the answer pretty heavily depends on the results of the two head-to-head matches with Manchester City. I think if Arsenal get 2 or more points 87 or 88 points could be enough.

This point total makes it so that even a resurgent Manchester United aren’t really a concern (they get to 87 or more points in less than 1 percent of the time and I am taking a show me approach to them). They have gotten better but are still quite a way off Arsenal, Manchester City, and even Newcastle in their performances.

If the worst happens in the head-to-head matches and it is 1 point or less from those it would probably take 90+ points from Arsenal. I hope it doesn’t come to it but it is nice that Arsenal can still control their destiny even if they lose both.

Here’s hoping for historical run that makes this all moot.