Premier League Standings Flow Chart

Bump charts with ggbump

Plot

This plot attempts to visualize the “standings flow” in the English Premier League during the 2023-24 campaign, with a focus on champions Manchester City and runners-up Arsenal.

What we will be creating

Full source code

library(tidyverse)
library(worldfootballR)
library(ggbump)
library(ggtext)
library(showtext)

## add Cairo font from google fonts
font_add_google("Cairo", "cairo")
showtext_auto()

## get the data from worldfootball R
## use purrr and weeks 1:38 to loop over all standings and weeks
data <- map_dfr(1:38, \(week) tm_matchday_table("England", start_year = "2023", matchday = week))

p <- data %>% 
  select(team = squad, week = matchday, place = rk) %>% 
  ## add fill colors and alpha levels based on whether teams are man city/arsenal or not
  mutate(
    fill_color = case_when(
      team == 'Man City' ~ '#6CABDD',
      team == 'Arsenal' ~ '#EF0107',
      .default = 'grey50'
  ),
    alpha = ifelse(team %in% c('Man City', 'Arsenal'), 1, 0.5)
  ) %>% 
  ggplot(aes(week, place, color = fill_color, group = team)) +
  geom_point(size = 1.7, aes(alpha = alpha)) +
  ## geom_bump from ggbump
  geom_bump(aes(alpha = alpha), linewidth = 0.7) +
  scale_color_identity() +
  ## customize our weeks lables
  scale_x_continuous(breaks = c(1, seq(10, 30, 10), 38),
                     labels = c("1st week", "10th", "20th", "30th", 'Final week')) +
  ## reverse the y-axis so 1st is plotted at the top and customize the labels
  scale_y_reverse(breaks = seq(1, 20, 1), labels = c("1st", seq(2, 19, 1), 'Last')) +
  theme_void() +
  theme(legend.position = 'none', # remove legend
        plot.title.position = 'plot',
        ## add the cairo font and change some sizes for saving
        plot.title = element_text(family = 'cairo', hjust = 0.5, size = 46, face = 'bold', vjust = 0),
        plot.subtitle = element_markdown(family = 'cairo', hjust = 0.5, size = 24),
        plot.caption.position = 'plot',
        plot.caption = element_text(family = 'cairo', hjust = 0.5, vjust = -2, size = 18),
        axis.text = element_text(family = 'cairo', size = 20),
        axis.text.x = element_text(vjust = -1),
        ## add light dotted major gridlines for viewing
        panel.grid.major.x = element_line(color = 'grey70', linetype = 'dotted'),
        panel.grid.major.y = element_line(color = 'grey70', linetype = 'dotted'),
        ## set margins
        plot.margin = unit(c(0.25, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5), "cm"),
        ## make background off-white
        plot.background = element_rect(fill = "#F6F7F2")) +
  labs(title = '2023-24 English Premier League Table Flow',
       ## with ggtext, we can use minor HTML to change color and weight of our subtitle
       subtitle = "<p>The fight between <span style='color:#6CABDD;'><b>Manchester City</b></span> and <span style='color:#EF0107;'><b>Arsenal</b></span> throughout the 2023-24 campaign</p>",
       caption = "Data by worldfootballR || Viz. by @andreweatherman")

## save
ggsave(plot = p, w = 6.16, h = 4.81, "premier_league_flow.png")