EPL Week 31

Match of the Day

Abbreviated version with only four games at the week-end but Salah runs riot

Tenth time a Liverpool player has added an assist to a hat-trick and Salah’s feat was the first in four years; when Suarez achieved it for third time in 18 months

When Goal Difference makes No Difference

Huddersfield’s most recent defeat left them in 15th position with a goal difference of -27. Only Stoke(-29) can currently boast(?) a worse figure and one of the current bottom-three, Southampton, are only showing a 15 goal deficit

The correlation between league position and goal difference is clearly going to be high - but there are exceptions

Here is the data for all completed seasons. Hover points for details

A couple of outliers include Norwich in the inaugural PL season; they finished 3rd but with a negative goal difference of -4. On the other side of the coin, Birmingham were relegated in 19th place but were only 13th in goal difference

Here are how the relegated teams have fared

West Ham and Sunderland are the two teams that would have been relegated if the decision was based on goal difference but actually finished 15th

Luka Milivojevic picked up his league leading sixth penalty and is now two ahead of the field in spite of missing a last-minute chance against Man City and having one wrestled off him by Benteke (who missed)

Tweet of the Week

Amazingly, although over half of #premierleague defeats are by a single goal,
of #htafc's 16 losses this season, 15 have been by 2 or more
Only one was v #MCFC decided by 84th minute goal#CPFC pic.twitter.com/MWVCmpEV56

— Andrew Clark (@pssGuy) March 19, 2018

Totally Football and Guardian Weekly Review Podcasts

Results and Table

Final Factoid

Mane graabs three assists for first time in EPL career and is just 2 goals shy of a double-double for third consecutive season

Plenty more NEW data at the premiersoccerstats site

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