The Monday Index: Arsenal are top, and the Index agrees. Just not for the reason the table gives

The short answerYes, the Beaumont Index agrees that Arsenal deserve to be top. After Kai Havertz's 16th-minute goal won it at Anfield, they are rated 1921, the highest of any club in the world, and 85 points clear of Manchester City, who lost at home to Brighton. But the Index also says Arsenal's three-point lead flatters them less than City's previous share of first place flattered City. Arsenal are top because they are the best team, not because they have been the luckiest. Of our seven weekend calls, three were right, one was partly right, two were wrong and one is too early to grade.

Here is the thing the table does not tell you. Before the weekend Arsenal and Manchester City were level on 21 points, and both had about five more points than their chances usually earn. On luck, they were twins. On quality, they were not: Arsenal were rated about a third of a goal per 90 minutes better. The weekend did not change who was lucky. It changed who got the result that matched their football. Arsenal won a game they were rated to edge. City lost a game they were rated to win.

So when people say Arsenal "rode their luck again" at Anfield, the Index answers: partly, as they have all season, but the bigger story is that the best team in England is now also first in the table, and that the gap to the rest is real.

What happened at Anfield

Arsenal won 1-0 at Liverpool on Sunday, their first win there since 2012 and the end of 16 unsuccessful trips in all competitions. The goal came in the 16th minute. Martin Ødegaard cut out a clearance, Declan Rice overlapped down the right, and his low cross found Havertz free at the back post for a tap-in. It made Havertz the highest-scoring German in Premier League history.

After that, Arsenal defended. Liverpool's best moment was a shot from Florian Wirtz that hit the woodwork. In the second half Arsenal did not allow Liverpool a single shot on target. It was Arsenal's sixth clean sheet of the season, and it put them on 24 points from nine games, three clear of City on 21 and five clear of Brighton on 19. Liverpool, beaten for the second time under Andoni Iraola, are fifth on 15.

We are not writing a full morning-after here. That piece comes separately, once we have watched the match footage properly. This is about what the result does to the ratings.

Why the Index barely moved

Arsenal's rating went from 1913 to 1921. That is a small rise for a famous win, and it is deliberate. Before kick-off, with home advantage included, our ratings already made Arsenal the stronger side at Anfield, with an expected share of about 0.62 of the result (a win counts as one, a draw as a half). A narrow away win is close to what the model expected. Liverpool fell from 1773 to 1765, again a modest move.

That is the most useful thing to take from this weekend, and the least obvious: the Index did not need Sunday to tell it Arsenal were the best team. It already thought so. The result confirmed the rating rather than creating it. If Liverpool had won, Arsenal would have fallen, but they would still have been first in the world.

That piece comes separately, once we have watched the match footage properly.

The bigger move in England came at the Etihad on Saturday. Manchester City lost 1-0 at home to Brighton, Yasin Ayari scoring in the 11th minute. City had 62% of the ball and 21 shots, and Bart Verbruggen made seven saves. Our ratings gave City an expected share of about 0.71 of the result, a clear favourite. Losing a game like that costs a lot: City dropped 14 points to 1836, and Brighton rose 14 to 1761. City are now 85 points behind Arsenal on the Index, roughly half a goal per 90 minutes.

The luck question, answered honestly

The fair challenge to Arsenal is the one we made ourselves on Friday. Before the weekend they had 21 points from chances that usually earn about 16. Last season they beat their chances by about five points too. That is two seasons of results running ahead of the football.

City were in exactly the same position: 21 points from chances worth about 15, and about four points ahead of their chances last season. So the question "are Arsenal top because of luck?" has a precise answer. They are no luckier than the team they were level with. What separates them is the rating, and the rating is built on more than this season's results. It weights last season, the strength of each league, and the quality of chances created and conceded.

Brighton are the side whose numbers are moving fastest. Before Saturday they were rated rising on our trend measure, with about three more points than their chances suggested. They are now third in the table and eighth in the world on our updated ratings, level with Benfica. Our Sunday piece asked whether Brighton are genuine contenders. On these numbers, they are a top-eight team in Europe. Contenders for the title is a different question, and the gap to Arsenal, about 160 rating points or close to nine-tenths of a goal per 90, says not yet.

There is one caveat that matters. Arsenal's trend measure is still "falling". Their level this season is below last season's. The Index thinks they are the best team in the world, and also that they are a little less good than they were. Both things can be true. The danger for Arsenal is not that the lead is fake. It is that a team beating its chances by five points every season eventually stops doing so, and when that happens the cushion matters.

Grading our seven weekend calls

Every Friday and Saturday we publish previews. We said we would grade them in public, including the ones we got wrong. Here are the seven calls we made in previews published on 30 and 31 October, and what happened. None of these carried a published win probability, so they are graded as calls, not scored with a probability measure.

1. Vancouver Whitecaps v Seattle Sounders: Vancouver clear favourites. Hit. Our Cascadia preview said Vancouver should be clear favourites and would have more of the ball in the final third. They won 5-1 at BC Place, with Brian White scoring after 57 seconds and again in the second half, and Ryan Gauld, Mathias Laborda and Aleksa Cvetkovic also scoring. We also said not to be surprised if the result was closer than the territory. It was not close at all, so that half of the call was wrong in the right direction.

2. Juventus v Napoli: Juventus favourites, Napoli would find chances hard to come by. Hit. Juventus won 2-0, with Kerim Alajbegovic scoring in the 70th minute and Jérémie Boga in the 87th. Napoli had chances early, including a header from Lorenzo Lucca that Guglielmo Vicario saved, and the first hour was even. Luca Marianucci's second yellow card in the 75th minute made the end easier for Juventus. Juventus are a side whose chances have been worth far more than their points this season, about six points more before the weekend. A home win against Napoli was what their numbers had been promising.

3. Liverpool v Arsenal: Arsenal's depth and structure protect their floor, so they keep winning on days they are not at their best. Hit. We did not pick a winner. Our essay said the interesting question was which description would change: Arsenal as the best team on performance, or Liverpool as the side whose results most honestly match its football. Neither changed. Arsenal won with an early goal and a second half of defending, which is exactly the floor we described.

4. Chelsea v Manchester United: two almost identical teams, with United's chances deserving far more than their points. Partly right. Chelsea won 2-0. Morgan Rogers scored five minutes after half-time, Lisandro Martínez was sent off after 63 minutes and Cole Palmer scored the penalty that followed. Our call was that the table overstated the gap. The first half supported it: United had the better chances, Bruno Fernandes shot over when unmarked and Amad Diallo was twice denied by Mike Penders. The second half did not. United fell apart, and a red card ended the contest. We said United's problem was converting chances, not creating them. Saturday was that problem in 45 minutes. But a 2-0 defeat is not evidence for "almost the same team", and we will not pretend it is.

5. Manchester City v Brighton: City favourites. Miss. We said City were stronger and at home, so favourites, but that a Brighton win would not be a surprise. Brighton won 1-0. We will take the miss. The second line of the preview, that City's lead was mostly luck and Brighton were improving faster than anyone near them, held up better than the first.

6. Milan v Inter: Inter clear favourites. Miss. Our ratings had Inter better by a little under six-tenths of a goal per game on a neutral pitch. Milan won 3-1, scoring three times in the first half through Christian Pulisic, Adrien Rabiot and a Diego Moreira free kick, with Moreira assisting the other two. Inter had plenty of the ball after Alessandro Bastoni's goal and Mike Maignan made several important saves, but the result is the result. Inter dropped to second, behind Lazio on goal difference. Lazio, for what it is worth, are the luckiest side in Serie A on our numbers, with about nine points more than their chances usually earn.

7. Fiorentina and Frosinone: the table has them the wrong way round. Too early, and against us so far. Our data note said Fiorentina had more in them than 18th and Frosinone were more likely to drift towards mid-table. Frosinone beat Torino 2-0 on Sunday and are on 20 points. Fiorentina play at Sassuolo tonight. One weekend cannot settle a claim about where two clubs finish, but the first data point went against us.

The tally: three hits, one partly right, two misses, one too early. On the four calls that were straight "who is the favourite" questions, we were right twice and wrong twice. That is not a record to boast about, and it is exactly why we publish it. Favourites lose often in football; a model that is right about the better team still loses a lot of single games. The value of the Index is not that it calls every match. It is that over a season, teams drift towards their ratings.

What the misses tell us

The two misses have something in common. City and Inter both lost to teams whose ratings were rising or whose first eleven is close to their own. Our derby preview said Milan's best route was the quality of their first XI, and that in a single game it can matter more than depth and coaching gaps. That turned out to be the right description of the match even though the pick was wrong. Brighton were the fastest-improving side in the top four of the Premier League before Saturday.

So the lesson is not that our ratings were wrong about who is better. It is that a rising team close behind a favourite is more dangerous than the rating gap alone suggests. We will build that into how we write previews: when the trend points against the favourite, we will say so more clearly, rather than leaving it in a closing paragraph.

The rest of the weekend, quickly

Milan's win moves them up 17 rating points, the biggest rise of any club in this set of games. Chelsea gain 12 and are fourth in the Premier League; Manchester United, without a win in nine games in all competitions, drop 12 and are 16th, a point above the relegation zone. Juventus gain eight. Vancouver, already top seed in the Western Conference, gain 16 after the 5-1. Frosinone gain 15 for beating Torino.

The verdict

Does the Index agree Arsenal should be top? Yes, and more firmly than the table. They were first in the world before Sunday and they are further clear after it. Their results have run ahead of their chances, but no more than City's, and their quality is higher than anyone's in England. The thing to watch is not the luck. It is the trend. A falling best team is still the best team, until it isn't.

Ratings: Beaumont Index model with chance data to 25 October 2026. The seven weekend results graded here are folded in with a results-only update; the full refresh, including chance data for this weekend, comes in Tuesday's World Ranking. Match details are from official club and league match reports.