Game of the week Crystal Palace 2 - 2 Chelsea
Champions lose to previously goalless, pointless London rivals
Julian Speroni and Gareth McAuley made their first appearances of the season becoming the oldest player and oldest outfielder, respectively, to appear in this campaign
Mo’s MO
It is a well known that Jose Mourinho’s modus operandi in away games against top sides is to play very conseravtively. It was not that succesful last season and although he got a point at Liverpool, the latter’s poor defence was probably there for the taking against a team that had averaged three goals per game after seven rounds
Jamie Redknapp mentioned that you don’t expect many 3-2 victories from a Mourinho team.
In fact, there have been six
FYI @JAMlEREDKNAPP re #Mourinho 3-2 wins
— Andrew Clark (@pssGuy) October 15, 2017
In #PremierLeague it is 6https://t.co/NexC0E5c5m#CFC #MUFC pic.twitter.com/4QCrPbamav
Well behind Sir Alex Fergsuon against whom all managers are measured and who has a marginally better overall win percentage (53-51)
Let’s look at a heatmaps of their results. Hover squares for totals
So his 23rd goalless stalemate. 2-0 victories (40) is narrowly the most common outcome
Interestingly, 1-0 victories is the only result that topped the century mark but 0-0 draws were relatively less commonplace that with Mourinho
City on the Rampage
Meanwhile, United’s cross-city rivals continue apace with only their second-ever sevon goal haul in the Premier League (7-0 v Norwich 2103/4) and now boast the most ever goals scored after eight rounds
Everton (2005/06) now replace Palace as the lowest scorers at this stage of the season. The Toffees had finished 4th the previous campaign
After 8 League games, City have already scored as many goals as 16 teams have managed after 38 matches in previous EPL campaigns - including their team of 2006/07
Arsenal conceding
Courtesy of a 90th minute strike by Watford’s Cleverley, Arsenal(26) now only have Crystal Palace(29) ahead of them in terms of conceding the most EPL goals in 2017
1992 and 2017(at the time of writing) are part years
Up to and including 2007, Arsenal conceded 20 away goals in only two years. Since then, they have only dipped below this level once.
2011 included an 8-2 drubbing at Old Trafford
Totally Football and Guardian Weekly Review Podcasts
Results and Table
Final Factoid
de Bruyne was withdrawn after 66 minutes with 4 assists - one shy of the EPL record
Plenty more NEW data at the premiersoccerstats site
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