The fight for the Serie A title

The Serie A title race has been hotly contested throughout the season. Milan leads it for now, but Napoli, Juventus and reigning champions Inter are right behind and are all ready for battle.

The Serie A title fight has been a close affair throughout the season, but as the season draws close to the end, the race to finish at the top has never been tighter.

Seven points separates the top four, so it's still very much anyone's.

With eight official game days remaining, 24 points on offer, it's going to be an interesting battle.

 

 

Milan

Milan currently occupies the top spot, as they have done for the majority of the season. They have worked their way back to the top after many seasons of mediocrity during the mid-2010’s.

Last year saw them finish runner-up to their city rival, Inter. This year, they’re looking to go one better.

Milan have scored the second most goals this season out of these four teams, and third most altogether in the league. Goals is something they are strongly over-achieving in as well, doing so by +8.4 goals on their 47.6 xG.

They average 1.74 goals per 90 mins, which is a solid goal rate and is second best from the top four.

However, they are let down in the goals conceded department. They have the worst clean sheet percentage of the teams in the top four. Understandably so, as they average 0.97 goals against per 90 mins.

Almost a goal conceded each game isn’t great, and compared to the others, it's even worse.

They find themselves at the top regardless, with an average of 2.20 points per game. With eight games left to play, they’d end up on 84 points (rounded up) if they carried on that rate.

 

Napoli

Milan’s nearest opponent is Napoli, who are three points behind them. They’re goal at the start of the season was to improve on the last two seasons, which saw them fall out of the Champions League spots. Now, they’re goal is their first league title since 1990.

Napoli actually match Milan for goals scored this year, with 53. But Milan has an extra three goals from own goals, which obviously don’t count to goals they have directly scored. They are also over-achieving on their xG by 6.1 goals.

Unlike Milan, though, Napoli have been solid at keeping goals out of their own net. They have conceded the least number of goals in the league, with 22, have the best goals against per 90 minutes rate at 0.73, joint-most clean sheets and clean sheet percentage, with 13 and 43.3% respectively, and the second-best save percentage at 79%.

Napoli are strong defensively and are pretty much matching Milan offensively, but are behind by three points because they lost to them earlier in the month.

Napoli are averaging 2.10 points per match, which means they would finish on 80 points (rounded up) carrying on at that rate.

 

Inter

The reigning Serie A champions, Inter have been on the chase to catch up to their older brother for most of this year. 

Their chances of going back-to-back are looking slightly slim, but not impossible, and definitely not with the way they have been attacking the season.

Inter have scored the most goals in the league, with 62, which puts them in the top 10 for highest scoring teams from Europe’s ‘Big Five’ leagues.

They have a rate of 2.14 goals per 90 minutes, which trumps their goals conceded per 90 minutes, which is at 0.83. That’s why they have the best goal difference in the league at +38.

More on their goals conceded, they are greatly over-achieving their expected goals allowed by 6.6, as their xGA is at 30.6 while they conceded 24.

Inter have also lost the least number of games this season, only tasting defeat three times. But they have dropped points in draws, tying the most games from the teams in the top four with nine.

Most interestingly, though, and the fact that might worry their biggest rivals the most, is that Inter still has a game in hand. They have nine games left of their season, while the other three sides have eight.

Despite this, Inter’s rate of 2.07 points per game would not be enough to bring them the league title, as they would finish on 79 points.

 

Juventus

Juventus dominated the 2010’s, winning nine straight titles from the 2011/12 season to the 2019/20 season. After a fairly disappointing fourth place finish last season, they are looking to get back to the top.

They are at the back of this pack of four and to be honest, it's about right for them. They have scored the least number of goals of the top four, scoring 47 goals, six goals back of the nearest team.

They have also conceded the second most goals with 26, giving them a weak [compared to the other three] goal difference of +21.

At least they are over-achieving in goals scored and conceded, with their expected goals scored to actual goals scored being a solid +6.7 goals difference. As for expected goals conceded to actual goals conceded, the difference there is 2.3.

Unfortunately for Juventus, though, they’d need a bit of a miracle to win the league title now. At their rate of 1.97 points per game, they are projected to finish with 75 points