Premier League table, September 20: Man City and Arsenal level on 12, Brighton lead for goals

Manchester City and Arsenal are level on 12 points at the top, City first on goal difference and with a match still to play. Brighton have scored 16 goals in five matches, more than anyone in the division. Chelsea have conceded 12, more than anyone. That is the table as of the September 20 update. Run the scenario engine across it and all 20 clubs come back with the same reachable range: best possible position 1, worst possible position 20. Fulham, bottom on a single point, are not yet out of the title race. City, top and unbeaten, are not yet out of the relegation fight. Four or five matches into a 38-match season that range is arithmetic rather than a forecast, and what the engine says underneath it is the part worth reading.

Every number below is computed from the September 20 update. Three matches scheduled for that Sunday had not been played when these figures were produced: Manchester City against Sunderland, Leeds against Crystal Palace and Bournemouth against Liverpool. The only Sunday result the table carries is Coventry City's 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest. Forty-six matches have been played in all: twelve clubs have played five, eight have played four. In a points league the clinch numbers are counted in points rather than wins, and at this stage they are enormous.

City have won all four, scored eight and conceded two, and won 1-0 at Manchester United on September 14. Arsenal have four wins and one defeat from five, the defeat a 3-0 loss at Brighton on Saturday. City are the only club in the division the engine will issue a title clinch number to, and at 99 points from a possible 102 it is a placeholder rather than a target: it asks for 33 wins out of 34. It sits that high because of Arsenal. Arsenal would reach 111 by winning all 33 of their remaining matches, and City's 12 plus 99 is exactly 111. Every other club returns nothing at all, because nothing they can do by themselves takes them past City's ceiling of 114. The same engine says City would need 91 more points before their own safety from relegation is arithmetically certified. That is what September looks like from the inside. The numbers are real, and none of them is a target anybody is chasing yet.

Four qualifying places are on offer at the top of the table, and only four clubs currently have a number that would secure one. City and Arsenal need 96 more points. Brighton, third on 10, need 98. Leeds, sixth on 8 from four matches, need 100 from a possible 102. Everyone else returns nothing, including three of the division's five unbeaten clubs. Brentford and Everton are both on 9 points from two wins and three draws, and winning all 33 of their remaining matches would take them to 108, which four other clubs can still beat. Liverpool, unbeaten from four, are the third. An empty clinch number is not a verdict on a team. It says only that the schedule has not yet given that team the power to decide the question alone.

The most striking name in the table is Brighton, and the goals are why. Sixteen scored in five matches, the most in the league, and five conceded, for a goal difference of plus eleven that nothing else is close to. Brentford are fourth with 10 goals scored and four conceded, and their 3-0 win over Chelsea came on the same Saturday afternoon as Brighton's 3-0 over Arsenal. Everton are fifth on the same 9 points with three conceded in five. Leeds are sixth after beating Newcastle 4-1 on September 15. Hull City are seventh on 8 points from two wins, two draws and a 2-1 defeat at Newcastle on Saturday.

The bigger names are lower down. Chelsea are ninth on 7 points and have conceded 12, the most in the league. Liverpool are tenth on 6, unbeaten with one win and three draws from four. Manchester United are thirteenth on 4 points from four matches. Newcastle are eighth on 8, with nine scored and nine conceded. None of the four has a top-four clinch number, and none of them is anywhere near elimination either. Liverpool's tragic number for the top four is 34 and they have 34 matches left. Newcastle's is 33 with 33 left. Manchester United's is 33 with 34 left. Each would have to lose essentially everything before the door closed.

At the bottom the arithmetic refuses to commit to anything. Fulham are twentieth on one point, Tottenham nineteenth on two after a 3-2 home defeat to Aston Villa on Saturday, Coventry City eighteenth on three despite scoring once in five matches, having won 1-0 at Nottingham Forest on Sunday. Only two clubs have a relegation tragic number at all, and in both cases it is the entire rest of the season: 33 for Tottenham, 34 for Fulham. No club can be mathematically relegated before losing every match it has left, and for eighteen of the twenty not even that would be enough. The clinch side is stranger. Tottenham and Coventry cannot certify safety by their own results at all right now, because the points they would need exceed the points still available to them. Fulham can, purely because of the game in hand: their number is 102, which is exactly their maximum. Win all 34 and they are safe on their own. Drop a single point and they are back to depending on other results.

Four matches close the round. Manchester City host Sunderland, Leeds host Crystal Palace and Bournemouth host Liverpool on Sunday, and Fulham host Manchester United on Monday, September 21. The Sunderland match is City's game in hand: win it and they go to 15, three clear of Arsenal, with both clubs then level on five matches played and 33 left. A Fulham win would be their first of the season. The fixture list then jumps to October 10, when Arsenal host Leeds in the first meeting between two of the four clubs that currently hold a top-four clinch number, and Ipswich host Fulham, Aston Villa host Brentford and Chelsea host Bournemouth.

How to read these numbers. A clinch number is the minimum additional points that guarantee an outcome even if every rival wins every match it has left, which is why it starts near the maximum in September and falls each time a rival drops points. A tragic number is the additional defeats after which an outcome becomes impossible even if the club wins everything else. The engine treats a club as clinching once it can no longer be passed on points, so finishing dead level with a rival counts here, which is why City's title number is 99 and not 100. The Premier League would settle that tie on goal difference, and this calculation does not model goal difference, so a clinch shown here can land a day earlier than the official one. The live table is at, the fixtures at, the qualification and relegation rules at, and lets you enter results yourself and watch the rank ranges narrow.