Stat, Viz, Quiz: The Year of the Trophy Drought Destroyers ...Middle East

Stat, Viz, Quiz is the Opta Analyst football newsletter. This week’s edition looks at English teams lifting trophies, some lovely new viz, and PSG’s shooting gallery.

That’s all, folks. The 2024-25 season is over.

Well, it is if you ignore the UEFA Champions League final, the Conference League final, the upcoming international break, quickly followed by the FIFA Club World Cup. But apart from that…

Last week saw Crystal Palace and Tottenham Hotspur win trophies. We checked and no, hell hasn’t frozen over. In fact, it kept up an apparent theme of the season, and one we’ll be looking into further in this week’s edition of SVQ.

We also have some new Opta viz to show off, which we’re very excited about, and we have a bumper 10-question quiz to mark the end of the Premier League season.

We’d also like to reassure you that while the season might be ending, we’re going nowhere. SVQ will still be arriving in your mailbox every Tuesday during the summer, with the best stats and viz around the biggest transfer stories, plus any notable occurrences from the Club World Cup, and more.

Aren’t we nice?

If you haven’t done so already, you can subscribe below for free to receive SVQ every Tuesday.

STAT – Five-Star Winners

Last week, we gushed about Crystal Palace’s FA Cup victory over Manchester City (sorry City fans, but let’s face it, when are we going to get another chance?) as the Eagles lifted their first ever major trophy.

Then on Wednesday, Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester United 1-0 in the Europa League final to win their first trophy in 17 years.

They both came after Newcastle United’s League Cup success in March, securing their first major piece of silverware in 70 years.

And, of course, Liverpool won a record-equalling 20th English top-flight title, and only their second Premier League crown.

On top of that, Chelsea face Real Betis on Wednesday looking to lift the Conference League trophy and become the first team to have won each of the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League.

Should the Blues be successful, it’ll mean five different English teams will have won a major trophy in a single season, the first time that has ever happened.

For the sake of this, we are only including the English top-flight title, FA Cup, League Cup, European Cup/Champions League, UEFA Cup/Europa League, Cup Winners’ Cup and Conference League. No Community Shields, UEFA Super Cups or FIFA Club World Cups.

There have been other occasions when five major trophies have been won by English teams, but each time at least two of those competitions were won by the same team, so only three or four different teams claimed them.

The first occasion came in 1967-68 when Manchester City won the First Division, West Bromwich Albion lifted the FA Cup, Manchester United won the European Cup, while Leeds United lifted both the League Cup and Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. It should be pointed out that the latter competition was not recognised by UEFA even though it’s broadly accepted to have been comparable to what became the UEFA Cup.

It happened four more times between then and the 1983-84 season, when Liverpool won the First Division, League Cup and European Cup, while Everton won the FA Cup and Spurs the UEFA Cup.

England had to wait until 2018-19 for it to happen again, when Man City’s Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup treble was complemented by Liverpool winning the Champions League and Chelsea enjoying Europa League glory.

It happened again four years later when City’s other treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League was added to by Manchester United winning the League Cup and West Ham going all the way in the Conference League.

This would be the first time five different English teams have won major silverware in the same season, though, meaning a quarter of the Premier League will have something to toast over the summer.

VIZ – Runny Rice

We have some tremendously talented people here at Opta, though unfortunately for you, none of them write this newsletter (yes, that is false modesty fishing for compliments).

Our data analysts have been hard at work producing some new viz for us to use and for you to enjoy, and here we show off one of their new concoctions.

Football involves running, you may have noticed, and now we can show you in fine detail the off-ball runs that players are making.

The first viz below shows the 11 runs Declan Rice made when Arsenal were in possession in the recent 1-0 win over Newcastle United. The England midfielder scored the winner but was also generally involved in a lot of the Gunners’ best moments as usual as they secured Champions League football for another season. For clarity, these are runs made by Rice off the ball when his team were in possession.

Not only that, but we can also show each type of run Rice made that day. Of his 11 runs, there was one overlap, one underlap, four supporting runs, three ahead of the ball, one in-to-out and one in behind.

We can also show runs he made when Arsenal were out of possession. Obviously, a lot of these will be running back to his own goal, with some being forward runs when a player has chosen to press the opposition. We can see below how busy Rice was when the Gunners were in defensive mode, with 23 out-of-possession runs. Only Ben White made as many (also 23) of Arsenal players in the game.

We can label these too, though clearly with so many runs the graphic will look as busy as Rice himself. So, we also have the option of picking out certain types of out-of-possession runs, such as the five occasions he tracked a Newcastle player, with only Jakub Kiwior making more (nine) for Arsenal.

So, in conclusion, Declan Rice works really hard and we’re very excited about being able to share more running viz with you over the summer and into next season.

More to come…

QUIZ – The Big Premier League 2024-25 Quiz

As we call an end to the 2024-25 Premier League season, we want to test you on what you can remember from it with a bumper 10-question quiz, one from each month of the campaign. Answers at the bottom of the page.

1. In August, Arne Slot’s first home game as Liverpool head coach saw the Reds complete 92% of their passes, their best passing accuracy in a Premier League game on record (since 2003-04). Who was it against?

2. Cole Palmer broke the Premier League record for most goals in the first half of a game in Chelsea’s home win over Brighton in September. How many did he score before the break?

3. Bukayo Saka reached 10 goal involvements in just eight appearances for the season (3 goals, 7 assists) by October, the fewest games by an Arsenal player to reach 10+ in a single campaign since who in 2009-10?

4. Ruben Amorim replaced Erik ten Hag as Manchester United manager in November, with his first game coming away at Ipswich Town. What was the score?

5. Mohamed Salah scored his 100th home goal in the Premier League in Liverpool’s win over Leicester City at Anfield on Boxing Day, but how many of the Egyptian’s 100 goals came at Stamford Bridge when he was a Chelsea player?

6. Tottenham Hotspur were surprisingly beaten at home by Leicester on 26 January, but how long was the losing streak that the Foxes had going into that game?

7. In February, Erling Haaland became only the second player ever to score 20+ goals in each of his first three Premier League seasons, after who?

8. Which Premier League team in March became the first English top-flight side ever to win six away games in all competitions without conceding a single goal?

9. April saw Arne Slot became the fifth manager to win the Premier League in his first season in the competition. Who are the other four?

10. In May, Fulham became the first team ever to see two different players score at least five goals as a substitute in the same Premier League campaign. Who are the two players?

Ask Opta

This week’s question comes from James B, who asks: “Do you have PSG’s shot data from this season’s Champions League? Feels like they’ve had loads.”

Do you have a stats-based football question you want to Ask Opta? If so, send it to [email protected] and we’ll do our best to provide you with the answer in a future edition of SVQ.

Answer:

Yes James, like the groom at a stag do, Paris Saint-Germain have had a lot of shots this season.

The Ligue 1 champions have recorded 298 shots in the Champions League in 2024-25, more than any other team (ahead of Bayern Munich – 287), while their 111 shots on target is also the most (Bayern – 108).

Bayern (34.0) are still slightly ahead of PSG (33.2) for expected goals, while Barcelona (43) lead Luis Enrique’s side (33) in terms of actual goals scored.

You would expected PSG to add to these impressive numbers on Saturday when they face Inter in this season’s Champions League final in Munich.

On that note, seven teams have managed more shots than Inter in this season’s competition (174), nine have had more shots on target (65), six have scored more goals (26) and seven have recorded a higher total xG (24.3).

As Barcelona found out in the semi-finals, though, never rule out the Nerazzurri when it comes to finding a way.

Our Opta data hubs have detailed team and player stats, predictions, expected league tables and much more. Click below to start your own data investigations.

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Quiz Answers

1. In August, Arne Slot’s first home game as Liverpool head coach saw the Reds complete 92% of their passes, their best passing accuracy in a Premier League game on record (since 2003-04). Who was it against

Brentford

2. Cole Palmer broke the Premier League record for most goals in the first half of a game in Chelsea’s home win over Brighton in September. How many did he score before the break?

Four

3. Bukayo Saka reached 10 goal involvements in just eight appearances for the season (3 goals, 7 assists) by October, the fewest games by an Arsenal player to reach 10+ in a single campaign since who in 2009-10?

Cesc Fàbregas (six games)

4. Ruben Amorim replaced Erik ten Hag as Manchester United manager in November, with his first game coming away at Ipswich Town. What was the score?

1-1

5. Mohamed Salah scored his 100th home goal in the Premier League in Liverpool’s win over Leicester City at Anfield on Boxing Day, but how many of the Egyptian’s 100 goals came at Stamford Bridge when he was a Chelsea player?

Two

6. Tottenham Hotspur were surprisingly beaten at home by Leicester on 26 January, but how long was the losing streak that the Foxes had going into that game?

Seven games

7. In February, Erling Haaland became only the second player ever to score 20+ goals in each of his first three Premier League seasons, after who?

Ruud van Nistelrooy, from 2001-02 to 2003-04

8. Which Premier League team in March became the first English top-flight side ever to win six away games in all competitions without conceding a single goal?

Crystal Palace

9. April saw Arne Slot became the fifth manager to win the Premier League in his first season in the competition. Who are the other four?

José Mourinho (2004-05), Carlo Ancelotti (2009-10), Manuel Pellegrini (2013-14) and Antonio Conte (2016-17)

10. In May, Fulham became the first team ever to see two different players score at least five goals as a substitute in the same Premier League campaign. Who are the two players?

Rodrigo Muniz (six goals) and Harry Wilson (five goals)

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Stat, Viz, Quiz: The Year of the Trophy Drought Destroyers Opta Analyst.

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