We start our Pythagorean tables of the Big Five European leagues with Italy’s Serie A.  The table is for matches played up to 4 November, and the league Pythagorean exponent is 1.70.

A reminder that the Pythagorean table accounts only for points won on the field of play, so the table presented here does not include point deductions.  Four teams — Sampdoria (1 point), Torino (1), Atalanta (2), and Siena (6) — have points deducted because of their involvement in the most recent match fixing scandal.  (It’s become a habit in Italy, sadly.)

At quarter-distance, the championship looks like it’s a four-team race between Juventus, Inter, Fiorentina, and Napoli, and the Pythagorean expectations confirm that.  Milan should be in the mix as well, but they’ve been the major underperformer in Serie A so far. Atalanta have performed much better on the field than you might expect from their goal statistics (+5 Pythagorean residual), but the point penalty has cost them two places.  Siena’s point deductions have really hurt them, and they will have to significantly improve their play to have any chance of staying up.  A lot can happen in the bottom six or seven,  but if I were Genoa or Bologna I’d be concerned.