Kalema Lawrence
The dates of 13th May 2018 saw off the 2017/18 Premier League Season with 3 clubs seeing their fate of the next season in the Championship, 3 in UEFA Europa League and Four in the UEFA Champions League.
For the second time in a row, Arsenal will be playing in the Europa alongside the 2016/17 League champions, Chelsea plus Burnley FC that will first play the qualifiers after finishing 7th on the 20 – teams log. Manchester City – the Champions, Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspurs qualified to the Champions League group stages as West Bromwich Albion, Swans City FC and Stoke City saw there way into the relegation.
Here are the Season’s most intriguing records and statistics.
Man City Records
In the record breaking ‘thing’, Manchester City were the masters of the season with up to Seven New Records being set under the guidance of Manager Pep Guardiola of which 5 were pertained by Chealsea FC.
They were the first EPL Club in history to reach 100 points, breaking Chealsea’s 2004/05 record of 95 points. They collected the most wins of the season (32), smashing Chelsea’s 30 wins of 2016-17, Scored 106 goals still to break Chelsea’s 103 goals set in 2009-10.
The Citizens secured the most away wins (16) beating the Blue’s 15 away wins of the 2004-05 plus the biggest positive goal difference of 79 still beating Chealsea’s 71 of 2009-10. City also recorded the biggest title-winning margin of 19 points from United’s 18 points set in 2009-10 and the least time trailing of 153 minutes scrapping off Arsenal’s 170 minutes of 1998-99.
Passing and Pass Accuracy
While thrashing Swansea 5-0, Manchester City became the first team to attempt over 1,000 passes in a game since Opta started recording that data in 2003-04. However, it was not a City player who topped the individual passing charts of the season, it was Instead Arsenal’s midfielder Granit Xhaka.
Xhaka set a new Premier League record of 3,117 attempted passes followed by two City players, centre-back Nicolas Otamendi and defensive midfielder Fernandinho, all the three beating the previous record held by Cesc Fabregas.
Meanwhile, in terms of passes completed, Otamendi’s 2,825 complete passes made him finish atop of Xhaka (2,709), with Fernandinho third (2,679).
Most Goals of the 38 Matches Season
Liverpool’s Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah broke the record for the most goals scored in a 38-game Premier League season with his 32nd strike against Brighton on the last day. He had equaled the likes of Luis Suarez (Liverpool 2013-14), Alan Shearer (Blackburn 1995-96) Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United 2007-08) with 31 goals four matches to the end of the season.
He was till the last day chased by Tottenham’s Harry Kane, who scored twice in a remarkable 5-4 thriller against Leicester, to bring his tally for the season to 30 for both to end up setting a record of two players scoring 30 or more goals in a single season.
The only previous time it had happened was a 42-game season in 1993-94 when Andy Cole scored 34 goals for Newcastle and Shearer struck 31 times for Blackburn.
Wenger’s end of Reign
It started with a 2-0 win at Blackburn in 1996 and ended with a 1-0 victory at Huddersfield in 2018. In those 22 years, Arsen Wenger guided Arsenal in 1,235 games in all competitions, winning three Premier League titles and seven FA Cups, including two Doubles.
His most memorable achievement in the history of Football is the stunning unbeaten season of 2003-04 that even crossed to the following season, making it 49/49 unbeatable in the League.
Early glory faded, with 11 of the 17 trophies the Gunners won under Wenger coming in his first 10 years in charge and the Frenchman leaves them in sixth, their lowest position since he arrived.
He has not won any European or the English League Trophy in all his years at Arsenal.
Other Records and Stats
- Newcastle’s tally of 44 points is the lowest by a side finishing 10th in the Premier League, breaking the previous record of 45 set just last year by West Brom that was relagated this season. Since the Premier League was reduced to 20 teams in 1995-96, the average number of points won by the team finishing 10th is 49.
- The 13-point gap between Newcastle’s 44 points) and West Brom’s 31 points is the second-lowest difference from 10th to bottom in Premier League history after the 12 points that separated Tottenham (46 points) and Nottingham Forest (34 points) in 1996-97.
- For just the third time in Premier League history, all three promoted teams avoided relegation, with Newcastle finishing 10th, Brighton 15th and Huddersfield 16th. This last happened in 2011-12 – when Norwich, QPR and Swansea all stayed up – while Blackburn, Bolton and Fulham were the first trio to achieve the feat in 2001-02.
- 10 men played every minute of the season, including five outfield players – Jack Cork (Burnley), Lewis Dunk (Brighton), Mathias Jorgensen (Huddersfield), Harry Maguire (Leicester) and Alfie Mawson (Swansea). The other five to rack up 3,420 minutes are all goalkeepers – Asmir Begovic (Bournemouth), Lukasz Fabianski (Swansea), Jonas Lossl (Huddersfield), Jordan Pickford (Everton) and Mat Ryan (Brighton).
