Football: A numbers game

Here is the statistical story of an astonishing weekend of Premier League football that saw a number of records broken:

Monday 07 February 2011 01:00 GMT
Comments

41 Number of goals scored in the Premier League on Saturday – beating the previous record of 36, set on 27 November 2010.

43 Goals scored in the Premier League across the weekend, the most in a 20-team season. 53 were scored across the weekend of 8-9 May 1993, when there were 22 teams.

4-4 Newcastle became the first Premier League side to rescue a point after being 4-0 down.

8 Number of penalties that were awarded in the Premier League on Saturday. Seven were scored, with Tottenham's Rafael van der Vaart, having already scored one, the only person to miss from the spot.

29 League games unbeaten for Manchester United prior to Saturday's defeat at Wolves. Their last defeat came against Chelsea last April.

49 Arsenal retain the record for number of League games unbeaten – going 49 games without losing between May 2003 and October 2004.

700 Kevin Doyle's winning goal for Wolves against Manchester United was the 700th Premier League strike of the season.

5 Sides in the Premier League's top seven that Wolves have beaten this season – only Arsenal and Tottenham have yet to be defeated by Mick McCarthy's side, and Arsenal host Wolves next Saturday.

3 Fulham's John Pantsil became only the second player to score three own goals in a single Premier League season, following Southampton's Andreas Jakobsson in 2004-05.

5 Number of players who scored their first Premier League goal on Saturday: Arsenal's Johan Djourou, Newcastle's Cheick Tioté, Blackpool's Jason Puncheon, Aston Villa's Kyle Walker and Wolves' George Elokobi.

8 Ian Holloway and his Blackpool side have lost eight of nine games in 2011 – the sole exception being the 2-1 home victory over Liverpool last month.

8 Goals scored by Louis Saha in his last six Everton games, after scoring once in his previous 27 matches.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in