Stat, Viz, Quiz is the weekly Opta Analyst football newsletter. Our latest edition includes numbers on the Premier League 2023-24 season, the title race, relegation, and we have a gigantic quiz for you, too.
And there it is. Another Premier League season in the can.
Congratulations to Manchester City on a record fourth consecutive title. Commiserations to Arsenal on missing out but doing so despite amassing 89 points and winning their final six games. It must feel a bit like being a Formula 1 driver who has managed to get every last bit out of his car, only to see Max Verstappen still inevitably disappear off into the distance.
In this week’s SVQ, we look back on the 2023-24 Premier League season, including both ends of the final table. The three teams that came up last season have gone straight back down; we try to figure out what that means. We’ll also be looking at that fierce title race, even if it did end somewhat predictably.
As an end-of-season treat, we also have a bumper 10-question quiz for you that looks at some of the best stats of the campaign, and we answer another interesting Ask Opta query.
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STAT – What Goes Up, Must Come Down
The whistle goes and the fans inevitably invade the pitch whenever a team seals promotion from the Championship to the Premier League. We have witnessed the scenes of jubilation in recent weeks for both Leicester City and Ipswich Town, who will both be back in the top flight next season.
It’ll be the same glee for either Leeds United or Southampton when they meet in the Championship play-off final, with it guaranteed that two of the three teams who fell out of the Premier League in 2022-23 will be back at the first time of asking.
However, despite each of Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton Town all experiencing the same joy of promotion last season, they also endured the misery of relegation just a year later.
It was only the second time in Premier League history, and the first time since the 1997-98 campaign, that the three promoted teams were the three who went down. Back then it was Crystal Palace, Barnsley and Bolton Wanderers, which led to questions about the gap between the second and top tier in England.
To be fair, that it didn’t happen again for 26 years suggests it wasn’t much of a problem at all, but the three promoted clubs will each be very keen to avoid it happening next year.
The trio of relegated clubs this season did not exactly put up much of a fight either, even though Luton weren’t officially relegated until the final day. Collectively, they won just 66 points, comfortably the fewest ever in the Premier League by the three teams to go down; the next lowest was 76 in the 2018-19 campaign.
Sheffield United also broke an unwanted record for goals conceded in a Premier League season, with 104 going in against them in 2023-24. Not only did that beat the 89 against Derby County in 2007-08 – the previous record for most conceded in a 38-game Premier League season – but also the record when incorporating the three 42-game seasons, with Swindon the previous holders of that dubious accolade (100 goals against). In addition, Luton also made the list with their 85 goals conceded the joint-fifth most in Premier League history.
Good luck to the three promoted teams in 2024-25. They may very well need it.
VIZ – Man City Win the Title Race… Again
Our final viz of the 2023-24 Premier League season is, rather appropriately, our final title race graphic.
You may be familiar with the above as we regularly posted updated versions on the Opta Analyst website when asking the powerful yet cuddly Opta supercomputer for the latest percentage chances of the title challengers.
As you can see, for much of the first half of the season City were heavy favourites. It was only as they began to drop points when Arsenal and Liverpool were proving their credentials that it truly started to feel like a three-horse race.
Arsenal looked like closing the gap after their late 4-3 win at Luton in early December was followed by Man City’s 1-0 loss at Aston Villa, which was the last result in a run of just one win in five games for the defending champions (D3 L1).
However, Arsenal then also lost at Villa, which started their own run of one win in five games before the turn of the year (D1 L3). That opened the door for Liverpool, who only lost one game in the league prior to a big 3-1 win for the Gunners over them at the Emirates in February, though the supercomputer decided City were bigger beneficiaries of that result than Mikel Arteta’s men.
City didn’t lose in the league again all season following that Villa defeat in early December, and only drew four of their remaining 23 games (W19).
They still lost their tag as favourites though, albeit briefly, after a 0-0 draw at home to Arsenal in late March saw Liverpool leap ahead of them.
It didn’t last, though, with Jürgen Klopp’s men starting to fade away after their very own run of one win in five in April (D2 L2), and both they and Arsenal allowed City’s percentage to rise significantly after they lost at home to Crystal Palace and Aston Villa respectively on 14 April.
Liverpool had fallen away completely by the start of May, which left City and Arsenal battling it out. Both won all their remaining games after 14 April, which gave the north London side occasional hope, but as ever, it was efficiently extinguished by Pep Guardiola’s ruthless champions.
Now for the supercomputer to have a well-earned rest ahead of the Euros, but in the meantime, you can find out how accurate it was in the Premier League this season.
QUIZ – Ten of the Best
As promised, here’s a bumper 10-question quiz for you this week. All questions are from this season’s Premier League, with answers at the bottom of the page. The answers can also be found in our article ‘The 137 Best Premier League Facts of the 2023-24 Season’, so if you’ve already read that consider yourself a lucky so-and-so.
1. In August, Vincent Kompany became just the third manager to face a team he previously played for in the competition in his maiden fixture when Burnley hosted Man City. Which two former players-turned-managers did the same, one vs Chelsea in 2010 and one vs Fulham in 2019?
2. The three hat-tricks scored on 2 September (Son Heung-min, Erling Haaland and Evan Ferguson) was the joint-most ever scored on a single day of Premier League football, level with 23 September 1995. Name any of the three players who scored a treble on that day in 1995. Clue: They played for Blackburn, Liverpool and Leeds at the time.
3. With Crystal Palace’s 1-0 win at Manchester United in late September, what did Roy Hodgson become the first manager ever to do in Premier League history?
4. Tottenham’s Ange Postecoglou won the most points by a manager in their first 10 games in the Premier League. How many?
5. Erling Haaland scored his 50th Premier League goal in November’s 1-1 draw between Man City and Liverpool, reaching this tally in just 48 appearances. This comfortably broke the previous record held by which former Manchester United striker?
6. Mohamed Salah scored his 200th goal for Liverpool in all competitions in December, against which opposition?
7. Aston Villa’s goalless draw with Everton in January was Unai Emery’s first ever 0-0 draw as a manager in the Premier League. How many games did it take for the Spaniard to experience his first goalless stalemate in the competition? A)77, B) 87, or C) 97?
8. Against Luton in March, Bournemouth became the fifth team in Premier League history to win a match in which they trailed by three goals. Name any of the other four teams.
9. In Chelsea’s dramatic 4-3 comeback victory over Manchester United in April, what did Cole Palmer become the 200th player to do in Premier League history?
10. Kevin De Bruyne’s assist against Tottenham in May moved the Belgian ahead of who into outright second for most assists in Premier League history?
Ask Opta
This week’s question comes to us from Nick Jones, who asks: “Following last week’s question about top penalty scorers per club, which defenders have scored the most goals in the Premier League for each club?”
Do you have a stat-based question you’d like Opta to answer in a future edition of SVQ? Email us at editors@theanalyst.com or message us on X @OptaAnalyst with #AskOpta and we’ll pick the best one.
Answer:
We really like it when one reader’s question inspires another. What a lovely little data-loving community we have here at Opta Analyst.
Anyway, now to actually answer it. Here are the top-scoring defenders in Premier League history for each of the 20 clubs who participated in the 2023-24 season:
- Arsenal – Laurent Koscielny (22 goals)
- Aston Villa – Steve Staunton (13)
- Bournemouth – Nathan Aké (11)
- Brentford – Ethan Pinnock (6)
- Brighton – Lewis Dunk (16)
- Burnley – Ben Mee (9)
- Chelsea – John Terry (41)
- Crystal Palace – Patrick van Aanholt/Scott Dann (13)
- Everton – David Unsworth (33)
- Fulham – Brede Hangeland/Carlos Bocanegra (8)
- Liverpool – Sami Hyypiä (22)
- Luton Town – Gabriel Osho (2)
- Manchester City – Vincent Kompany (18)
- Manchester United – Denis Irwin (18)
- Newcastle United – Fabian Schär (14)
- Nottingham Forest – Stuart Pearce (18)
- Sheffield United – Brian Gayle/Jayden Bogle (5)
- Tottenham – Eric Dier (12)
- West Ham United – Julian Dicks (21)
- Wolves – Matt Doherty (9)
What Are We up to at Opta Analyst?
Here’s some of the latest data-driven offerings you can find on our website:
🏆 Manchester City Win a Record Fourth Straight Title – Are They the Greatest English Side Ever?
🤷 Arsenal Were the Best Team in the Premier League This Season, but Even That Wasn’t Enough
💪 Premier League Team of the Season: Opta Analyst’s 2023-24 XI
😬 The Unwanted Premier League Awards for 2023-24
Quiz Answers
1. Roberto Di Matteo for West Brom v Chelsea in August 2010, and Scott Parker for Fulham v Chelsea in March 2019.
2. Alan Shearer, Robbie Fowler and Tony Yeboah
3. Hodgson was the first manager to string together five successive unbeaten Premier League visits to Old Trafford (W3 D2).
4. Postecoglou won 26 points from his first 30 available in the Premier League (W8 D2 L0).
5. Andy Cole (65 games)
6. In a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace. He became the fifth player to reach the milestone for the club.
7. C) 97. It is the longest start to a Premier League managerial career before being involved in a 0-0 by any manager in the competition’s history.
8. Leeds United (v Derby in November 1997), Wimbledon (v West Ham in September 1998), Manchester United (v Tottenham in September 2001) and Wolves (v Leicester in October 2003).
9. Score a hat-trick in the competition
10. Cesc Fábregas
Before you go…
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