Premier League table September 21: three clubs can clinch the top four, only Man City can drop points

Three Premier League clubs can still clinch a top four place on their own results, and the gap between them is how much they are allowed to drop. Of the 99 points still available, Manchester City may drop 5, Arsenal 2, and Brighton none at all. The other seventeen clubs cannot get there without help from somebody else. Nothing has been clinched yet and nobody has been eliminated from anything, and every one of the twenty clubs can still finish first and still finish last.

Every figure here comes from the September 21 update. Fifty matches have been played, which is exactly five rounds for twenty clubs, so every club is on five matches with 33 left. The last result counted is Fulham against Manchester United on Monday, September 21. The next fixture on the schedule is October 10, nineteen days later. Clinch numbers assume the worst case throughout, that every rival takes every point still on its schedule. None of this is a projection and none of it is a probability.

The fifth round ran from Saturday to Monday and left every club on the same number of matches. Brighton beat Arsenal 3-0 on September 19, the only defeat Arsenal have taken and the reason Brighton sit third. Brentford beat Chelsea 3-0 and Newcastle beat Hull City 2-1 the same day. Manchester City then beat Sunderland 5-3 on September 20 and are the only club in the division with a perfect record, five wins from five and 15 points, three clear of Arsenal. Leeds and Crystal Palace drew 0-0, which left Leeds unbeaten on 9 points from two wins and three draws and Crystal Palace on 4. Liverpool won 1-0 at Bournemouth to reach 9 points, also unbeaten on two wins and three draws, and left Bournemouth on 3 with no win in five. Coventry won 1-0 at Nottingham Forest. Fulham and Manchester United drew 1-1 on the Monday, putting United on 5 points and leaving Fulham on 2.

Three clubs carry a top four clinch number, and all three land on the same total. Manchester City need 94 more points, Arsenal 97 and Brighton 99, and added to 15, 12 and 10 points that is 109 in every case. The bar is 109 because of the four clubs tied on 9 points. Brentford, Leeds, Liverpool and Everton each have 33 matches left, so each can still reach 108, and 109 is the first total that puts all four of them out of reach at once. The same finishing total means three different seasons. Of the 99 points still available it leaves Manchester City 5 to drop, Arsenal 2, and Brighton none, so Brighton would have to win all 33.

Manchester City are the only club that can still win the league on their own results. Their title clinch number is 97, which on 15 points is 112, and against the 99 points still available it leaves them 2 to drop. That 112 comes from Arsenal, who can reach 111, because a rival who pulls exactly level still counts as a threat. For every other club the bar is Manchester City's ceiling of 114, and nobody else can reach even that figure. Arsenal top out at 111 and Brighton at 109, which is why the title column is blank for the other nineteen clubs. The other side of the title race has not closed either. Arsenal's title tragic number is 33, the whole of their remaining schedule. Brighton, Brentford, Leeds, Liverpool and Everton are at 32, Hull City, Newcastle, Chelsea and Ipswich at 31, and Fulham and Tottenham at 29, the shortest in the division.

Safety has one bar for the whole league, and it is 103 points. Manchester City's safety clinch is 88, Brentford's 94, Ipswich's 97, and 99 each for Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa, and every one of those added to the points already banked comes to 103. For the three clubs on 4 points that means winning all 33 remaining matches to be certain of staying up regardless of anyone else. Four clubs have no safety clinch number at all. Bournemouth and Coventry have 3 points and can reach only 102, Fulham and Tottenham have 2 and can reach only 101. Three clubs go down, so certifying safety means clearing the third lowest ceiling in the division, and that ceiling is the 102 of Bournemouth and Coventry.

The elimination side is just as open. The seven clubs on 9 points or more have no top four tragic number at all. Hull City, Newcastle, Chelsea and Ipswich have one and it is 33, the same as the number of matches they have left, so the top four only goes if they lose every one of them. Seven clubs from Manchester United down to Coventry are at 32. Fulham and Tottenham are at 31, the shortest anyone carries, and they are also the only two clubs in the division with a relegation tragic number. For both it is 33, so survival becomes impossible only after losing everything still to come. Every clinch and tragic number the two of them carry is the same, 2 points each from two draws and three defeats, and only goal difference separates them, Fulham 5-8 against Tottenham 2-8, which is why Fulham sit 19th and Tottenham 20th.

The next round is ten fixtures, played from October 10 to October 13 in Korean time. Arsenal host Leeds, Ipswich host Fulham, Aston Villa host Brentford, Chelsea host Bournemouth and Sunderland host Brighton on the Saturday. Manchester United host Tottenham, Crystal Palace host Nottingham Forest and Hull City host Everton on the Sunday. Liverpool host Manchester City on October 12 and Coventry host Newcastle on October 13, so every club plays once. Sunderland against Brighton puts the same figure on both ends of the table. Brighton's top four clinch is 99 and Sunderland's safety clinch is 99, and both mean the identical thing, win all 33. Three of the ten involve a club that carries a top four clinch number at all: that one, Arsenal against Leeds, and Liverpool against Manchester City, the only club with a title clinch number.

Correction, September 29: An earlier version listed only eight of the round's ten fixtures and said Manchester City, Liverpool, Newcastle and Coventry were not on either date. Liverpool against Manchester City and Coventry against Newcastle were missing. The paragraph above now includes them, and the count of fixtures involving a club with a top four clinch number is three, not two. None of the clinch or tragic numbers changed.

Update, October 14: The round was played on the dates this piece gave, and our piece on the results is at. All three fixtures involving a club with a top four clinch number were won by that club: Arsenal beat Leeds 2-1, Brighton won 2-0 at Sunderland and Manchester City won 3-0 at Liverpool. Brentford, Everton, Leeds and Liverpool all dropped points, so the top four line fell from 109 to 107, and Manchester City now need 89, Arsenal 92 and Brighton 94 of the 96 points still available, which leaves 7, 4 and 2 to drop. City's title number is 94, still a finishing total of 112, with 2 to drop. Sunderland's 99 is 96, still every point they have left. The safety bar fell from 103 to 100, Coventry's 4-1 win over Newcastle gave them a safety number of 94, and Bournemouth, Tottenham and Fulham now have none, each with a relegation tragic number of 32. Every club has played six and has 32 left, so there are still no games in hand.

How to read these numbers. A clinch number is the smallest number of further points that guarantees an outcome even if every rival wins everything it has left. A tragic number is the number of further losses after which the outcome is impossible even if the club wins everything else. A reachable range is the highest and lowest finish still arithmetically open, and right now every club's is first to twentieth. A blank column means a club's own results cannot settle it yet, which five matches into a season is most of the table. Ties are read conservatively in both directions, so this site is slow to declare anything. A rival who can pull exactly level still counts as a threat, so a clinch mark here can arrive a day after the official one, and a rival who can only pull level cannot eliminate anybody. Goal difference is not part of this, and neither are head to head records or the official tiebreakers. The live table is at, the remaining fixtures at, the club by club clinch and tragic numbers at, the method at, the European and relegation places at and scenario by scenario results at. Manchester City's own row is at and Brighton's at.