Liverpool can't keep winning games like this -- or can they?

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Last season, Tottenham had a better goal differential than this team through five matches, and they finished one place clear of the relegation zone.

So, which team would you rather be?

It's a trick question, of course: Team A and Team B are the same team.

Liverpool are undefeated this season, but they've still only won one match by more than a goal.

Since the Premier League was created in the early 90s, Liverpool have won 43 games with a goal in the 90th minute or later -- a whopping 13 more than any other side.

So, Liverpool are better at winning games late than everyone else -- or are they?

From the previous 10 Premier League seasons, I looked at a number of statistics from Stats Perform for the first five matches to see what best correlated with points won over the final 33 games of the season.

The correlation (also known as "r-squared") was 0.44, which means that 44% of the variation between the points every team has won over the final 33 games over the past 10 seasons can be explained by each team's adjusted goal difference through the first five games.

Here's how that looks:

And here's how things look across the league so far this season, by adjusted goal differential:

Ironically, this is exactly what happened the last time Liverpool won the league in 2019-20.

The following season, their adjusted goal differential through the first five games was plus-0.78, the same number they've got now.

While the worst a team with a plus-1-or-better adjusted goal differential has done was Liverpool's 78 points in 2017-18.

Now, it could happen, but the overwhelmingly likely outcome of Liverpool and Arsenal maintaining their current performance levels is that Arsenal wins the league.