A word of warning. A friend had a saying about statistics being used to make a judgement on what might or might not happen in football. He said they were the last refuge of the scoundrel. Or something like that.

And we all know the more general maxim about lies and damned lies. But it is the international break, so for the Premier League obsessive, there has been plenty of time to look at facts and figures from the opening 11 games if you are interested in that sort of stuff.

And if you had a lot of time to fill, you might even have looked at the tables at this stage of every season in Premier League history. Here is what you would have found.

In 16 of the 33 seasons, the team that has led after 11 fixtures has gone on to win the title. That means that on 17 occasions, a team that has been top of the table after 11 games has NOT gone on to become Premier League champions.

And the team responsible for FIVE of those instances was Arsenal.The last side not to win the Premier League after being top at the 11-game mark was Arsenal.

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At this stage in 2022/23, the Gunners held a four-point lead over Manchester City, who would go on to become champions. The Gunners currently hold a four-point lead over Manchester City.

As my mate implied, these statistics should have zero influence over the destiny of this season’s title. But what they do show is that leading the table after 11 games does not make overall success anything close to a formality.

And one mildly interesting aspect to these statistics is the gap that has been bridged by teams who have trailed at this stage but have gone on to win the title. In terms of points, the furthest any eventual champion has been from the top at this stage of the season is eight. And that has only happened twice.

But it can happen, which is why the five teams currently on 18 points cannot be ruled out of the title race. Which is why Manchester United cannot be ruled out of the title race.

With EFL Cup involvement ended and no European football on their schedule, Ruben Amorim’s team have a straightforward run of ten Premier League fixtures over the next seven weeks. Here are the current positions of the teams they will face in those ten fixtures. 13th, 10th, 18th, 20th, 9th, 6th, 14th, 20th, 16th, 17th.

Yes, United play Wolves twice in three December weeks. Happy Christmas. Of their next five away trips, only one is of any serious distance.

But that road trip to Crystal Palace is followed by visits to Wolves, Aston Villa, Leeds and Burnley. There will not be many festive hours on the road for Amorim and his men.

Numerically, the fixture list only gives United an advantage over those who have European and EFL Cup commitments. And most of those appear to boast stronger squads than the one Amorim has. But the impact made by Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, not to mention the steadying effect of keeper Senne Lammens, has been significant.

In the last two games of their unbeaten five-match run - 2-2 draws at Spurs and Nottingham Forest - United have hardly been electric, but they now look like a team that believes in the manager’s system and that, most crucially, believes it is going to win matches. And that is a good portion of the battle.

With the bookmakers, United are between 33-1 and 50-1 to win the title and there is a reason bookies are very rich. They don’t get much wrong.

But of those two teams who have indeed overcome an eight-point deficit after 11 games and gone on to be crowned Premier League champions, the most recent did it in the 2002/23 season. Manchester United. If only for the coincidence punter, Amorim’s side might be worth a bet.

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