EPL Week 3

Game of the week

A slightly fortuitous win for Manchester City. View the highlights with a Russian commentary

Arsenal leaking goals

Arsenal have gone from edging a seven-goal thriller against Leicester to a pummelling at the hands of Liverpool, via an unhappy trip to Stoke. Over this period, they have conceded eight goals.

How does that stack up over any three game stretch for them or any other team. Enter ‘Arsenal’ in the select box

Arsenal’s worst sequence included an 8-2 defeat at the hands of Manchester United, but this is the first time they have suffered more than one, distinct, eight goal run in the same calendar year.

Wigan’s record might take some beating. It started with an 8-0 drubbing by Chelsea at the end of 2009/10 followed by successive home defeats to Blackpool and Chelsea, again, at the start of the next season. Surprisingly, they won their next game at Spurs and managed to stave off relegation

Peter Crouch will rarely have scored an easier goal and his strike aganst WBA ensures that he has now scored in 15 EPL seasons. Of current players, Defoe will be hoping to mark a 17th year soon, Rooney reached 16 in Round 1 and Barry and Milner will be hoping to join him on that level

Stuck in the Starting Gate

Of course, Arsenal do at least have some points under their belts but Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and West Ham have yet to register a point

How unusual is it to have three teams in this dilemna at this stage of a Premier League campaign?

N.B For this year, ‘Final Pos’ refers to current standings

Several interesting observations can be taken from this table

  • It is the only time it has happened in the Premier League - you have to go back to 1966/7(in the top flight) to find three teams on zero points after three games
  • The past four years have seen every team get at least one point from the first three games
  • Prior to Crystal Palace, four teams have been both pointless and goalless. The lowest any of them finished the campaign was 12th
  • Amazingly, Southampton have found themselves in this situation five times (relegated once). No other team appears more than twice

I got this tidbit from OptaJoe - who are the kings of soccer trivai and I sometimes steal their ideas get inspiration from them

Here is an example tweet

Sounds quite the while

Time between goals

So 1077 days is nothing exceptional.

Most of those at the top of the list were out of the Premier League for several years ane were not prolific scorers anyways. Matt Jackson, for example, was an Everton player in the inauguaral season of 1992/93 but was scoreless with them after that year. He later resurfaced with a Wigan team that gained promotion to the top flight when he was well into his thirties

By contrast, James(Jamie) Carragher was a stalwart for Liverpool and clocked up more than 200 league appearances after his last goal for the club

Here is every player matched against their total appearances. Hover for further information


Totally Football and Guardian Weekly Review Podcasts


Results and Table

Final Factoid

Peter Cech tore into his team mates after the Liverpool game. No wonder as it was the first time he had conceded 8 goals in three consecutive gameslibrary(blogdown


Plenty more NEW data at the premiersoccerstats site

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or work offers

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