Premier League Power Rankings: Why Man City topped Arsenal

At the start of this month, Arsenal had a nine-point lead over Manchester City atop the Premier League table. And just like that, it's gone.

After beating the Gunners last weekend and then taking down Burnley earlier this week, Man City are tied with Arsenal -- on points, and by goal difference -- with just five matches left to go.

The bookies see it as City's title to lose, too. The implied odds at DraftKings give Pep Guardiola's side a 58% chance of chasing down Mikel Arteta's team for the third time in four years.

If only there was a way to see this coming. You could've, I don't know, read this power-ranking column last month, when City vaulted over Arsenal for the top spot? OK fine -- even I downplayed that development in the column itself, but this rating system's simple model picked up on some very real changes to each team's style of play that we've seen borne out over the past month.

With just the stretch run still to go, let's take a look at what the Premier League Power Rankings are saying about what we might be able to expect over the final few weeks of the season.

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How the Premier League Power Rankings work

Why rank, when we have a whole table that does that for us? Here's the reasoning, as outlined in a previous edition of the rankings:

These aren't meant to be the most accurate power rankings in the history of power rankings -- the goal here is to create something that is simple and intuitive but still has some predictive power. The value comes from comparing the rankings to the table, seeing what looks different, and trying to pry apart the reasons why.

For more detail on the methodology, please refer here. But to sum it up, there are four inputs: (1) talent, as measured by Transfermarkt's squad values, (2) underlying performance, as measured by non-penalty expected goal differential, (3) pressing intensity, as measured by passes allowed per defensive action or PPDA, and (4) buildup play, as measured by pass-completion percentage outside of the attacking third.

Here's how the rankings look with five or six games left in the season:

1. Manchester City (unchanged)

While City's performances hadn't quite caught up to Arsenal's, what the model picked up when it jumped them up to No. 1 was City's increased pressing intensity and the valuable additions of Marc Guéhi and Antoine Semenyo to the roster. The performances eventually caught up, too.