Looks like you're both trying to suggest other teams doing poorly can't be construed as luck on our part, which is ridiculous. Of course it's fecking luck. What is within our control isn't luck, what is not within our control is luck. And since we've performed absolutely abysmally in the games against the 5 sides I mentioned, and yet sit second in the table, that should be a big enough clue in itself that we've been very lucky that, for varying reasons, these sides have all had poor seasons relative to the standards they all set for themselves.
Luck is only one element, over a 38 game season luck is quite minor in everything.
It's like saying Liverpool were exceptionally lucky last season because all other sides were exceptionally poor last term, by your logic they are the luckiest team in the history of the league considering they wrapped it up earlier than any other side in the competitions history.
Or it could just be they were vastly superior to all other sides?
And the highlighted part is pretty much irrelevant anyway, I'm pretty sure LVG smashed the "traditional top 6 sides" with relative ease over his 2 years here and it mattered little. Overall the football was poor and we ended up finish 4th & 5th.
And just a heads up, a 2 or 3 points difference from where they were after 29 games is statistically insignificant. And even if it wasn't, it doesn't mean that they've improved on last season. And it certainly doesn't mean that they're all performing in line with their own or anyone elses' expectation levels.
Extra points on the board is the definitive marker to tell if a side has improved or not, we've improved to the tune of 12pts.
I think its a bit disingenuous to sum our position up to luck , nothing to do with the marked improvement in our ability to pick up pts against relegation battling sides? The Bruno / Pogba pairing has helped us no end, the early season form of Cavani? Marked improvement of Shaw? Rashford has had a very good season also again. We've become a far more difficult side to beat for the majority of the season as well across all competitions.
Last season we lost to Palace, Hammers, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Watford & Burnley.
This year we've only lost to Palace, Spurs, Arsenal and Sheffield United.
And if you want to bring luck or lack thereof that loss to Sheffield United was damned unlucky with a perfectly good Maguire goal ruled out and then losing to a deflected own goal.
Otherwise we'd be looking at a supposed "lucky" 15pt improvement.