Didn't we have a good start this year?
iirc We equal led our record points tally after 10 games. Something like that anyway.
I don't think we keep losing the title at all. We've had 3 really good seasons of massive progress, and in one of them we were in contention, but never leading, never favorites, and it didn't quite happen.
In this and last season, it should also be noted that two teams have gone on record equaling and record breaking winning runs.
We did have a good first ten games, but we're not at the halfway point yet, and have already dropped points to Burnley (D), Watford (D), Leicester (L), West Brom (D), Chelsea (L), Arsenal (L), United (L)...you know the drill.
Additionally, I believe I saw a stat somewhere (probably here) that tallied our points total at the 13-game mark (I think it was) under Poch over the last four seasons. It's more or less hovered at the 20-24 point mark consistently, for four seasons running. When I say that we start slow,
both those things come into play - it's not our first ten games, it's our first *nineteen*, prior to the second half of the season getting underway post Boxing Day. The form we show between January and April-May is in stark contrast to what we show prior to that period getting underway - and while our starts might still be relatively good by our own standards, winning the Premier League requires us to junk our standards entirely in favor of adopting far more exacting demands. Because our own standards aren't league-winning standards. At least, that's true for those we ended up setting in the Premier League era, anyway.
Here's the stat, by the way -
I agree that 'losing the title' is a bit of an exaggerated term to use - I shouldn't have used it. But that's where we give up leads we end up being unable to fully claw back. And we've been doing it for three seasons running.
