Premier League 19/20 statistics: Liverpool and Manchester City's pace setting, Manchester United's acceleration with Bruno Fernandes
The longest season ended with some of the biggest gaps. Eighteen points between first and second, a further 15 to third, meaning the champions Liverpool were statistically at least 50 percent better than 18 other clubs.
The 13 points between 19th, Watford, and 20th, Norwich, suggested that the Championship winners, without meaningful additions, are in a different league to the Premier League.
The elongated 2019/20 season ended Liverpool’s 30-year wait to become champions but was nonetheless a very modern phenomenon. It reinforced recent trends: for the third consecutive season, the champions registered 32 wins. The margin for error has been reduced, especially for slow starters.
Manchester City won 19 of their first 20 games in 2017/18. Liverpool took that a stage further, with 26 wins out of the first 27. The 2020/21 campaign will begin on 12 September but, despite that, has the potential to rule a supposed challenger out of contention before October.
That was the first season since 1967-68 when the top three finishers in the top flight all came from the north-west (Liverpool, Man City, Man Utd in 2019-20, Man City, Man Utd, Liverpool in 1967-68).
— Richard Jolly (@RichJolly) July 28, 2020
Some of the significance lies in the direction of travel. Manchester United topped the Bruno Fernandes table: they had 34 points, 14 fewer than Leicester, before the Portuguese debuted and took 32 with him in the team, two ahead of City and three clear of Liverpool.
United went from 1.42 points per game to 2.28. That extra 0.86 point made him arguably the most significant player in the division. To put it another way, with Fernandes, United set 86-point pace; without, just 54. With him, they were unbeaten; without him, they lost one third of their games.
Much was made when United’s front three outscored their Liverpool counterparts in all competitions. In the Premier League, Sadio Mane, Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino, with 46, ended up just ahead of Anthony Martial, Marcus Rashford and Mason Greenwood (44).
In another respect, they were opposites: no one underperformed their xG as much as Firmino (7.69) or overperformed as much as Greenwood, whose tally of 10 goals came from an xG of just 3.39. Rashford and Martial finished the season averaging 0.58 goals per 90 minutes, Mane and Salah 0.59. Greenwood and Fernandes ranked first and second among Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s players, even if the teenager, at 0.68, was only level with Raheem Sterling and still far behind Sergio Aguero (0.99)
Use their numbers across a whole season, assume each of the quartet of Rashford, Martial, Fernandes and Greenwood would play every minute for United – which, admittedly, will not happen – and they would be on course to score 93 league goals between the four of them, eight more than Liverpool’s title-winning total.
The counter-argument from Anfield is that Liverpool have taken 64 more points than United in the last two seasons. Solskjaer’s side finished with 66 points in July and Liverpool reached 67 in January. They displayed unrivalled consistency when it mattered most.
Summer setbacks snapped a couple of their statistical streaks.
James Milner had won 24 and Joe Gomez 25 consecutive league games until the 0-0 draw with Everton. Five years into his Liverpool career, the latter had not lost a league game he started as a centre-back until the 4-0 thrashing at the Etihad Stadium.
At one stage, Liverpool had only conceded one goal in 10 games with Gomez in the team while City did not concede in any competition with Aymeric Laporte on the pitch between August 25 and June 25, illustrating the importance of centre-backs in elite teams.
Meanwhile, Jordan Henderson’s only defeats as a Premier League starter since 2017 have come against City, which reinforces his talismanic status. Liverpool took 83 points out of 90 in the games when their captain played; it is 105-point pace.
Others could say different tables demonstrated their impact.
Jose Mourinho pointed out that Tottenham were 14th when he arrived and finished sixth. They came fourth in the Mourinho table, with only Liverpool and the Manchester clubs topping his 45 points in that time. Arsenal were sixth in the 'Arteta table', following Mikel Arteta’s appointment.
Southampton finished fifth in a Hasenhuttl table of sorts: Ralph Hasenhuttl was in charge for the entire campaign but their revival, following an autumn that included the 9-0 thrashing at Leicester, began with a November draw against Arsenal as they took 44 points from the last 26 games. Southampton ended the season with more away wins than Arsenal and Spurs got between them,
Leicester’s own slide meant they ended up 12th in the 2020 table, level with West Ham and prompting the question if such mediocre form will carry on in to next season. Watford were 12th in the Nigel Pearson table, a point above Leicester, and took only nine points, fewer even than Norwich, from their other 18 games.
Norwich, meanwhile, are the only team to have played Premier League games in June and July but got 100 percent of their points in the division between August and May.
Others may miss the summer when Che Adams and David McGoldrick scored the only top-flight goals of their careers. They may wonder if they can replicate that form in more normal footballing months.
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