Who's scored against most teams? Why have Man Utd broken an unwanted record? Martin knows...
Tyler's Teaser
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Martin's Starting Stats
I was at Stamford Bridge on Sunday where Fernando Torres scored his second Premier League goal since Christmas.
Andre Schurrle scored his first goal for Chelsea and that was followed on Tuesday by César Azpilicueta's first goal for Chelsea. Juan Mata also scored his first of the season in the Capital One Cup clash with Arsenal, meaning that they have had 13 scorers in this season so far.
The win over Man City gave Jose Mourinho 300 points from just 129 Premier League games. His record is W91 D27 L11 and his home Premier League record now reads P65 W51 D14 L0. He has 167 points from a possible 195 at Stamford Bridge.
On Tuesday, Mourinho took charge of his 200th game in charge of Chelsea and his record (counting penalty-shoot-outs as wins or defeats) reads P200 W134 D40 L26 - and three of those 26 losses were shoot-out defeats.
Petr Cech played his 445th Chelsea match against Manchester City, equalling Dennis Wise and moving into joint sixth on their all-time list. Branislav Ivanovic played in his 150th Premier League game for Chelsea and Sergio Aguero took his run to five goals in three games - and nine in the last seven.
He scores, he wins
Dear Martin. I'm sure it won't have escaped your attention that Sergio Aguero had scored in 31 games before Sunday and lost none of them. Now that his record has gone, I want to know who now has scored in the most PL games without losing when they've scored. Eric (Chelsea fan)
MARTIN SAYS: You're right to say that Sergio Aguero had scored in 31 Premier League games before Sunday and Manchester City had lost none of them, winning 29 and drawing the other two.
Three players in Premier League history have scored in more games than Aguero without losing when they have scored. Former Chelsea player Salomon Kalou and former Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas have each scored in 32 games and their clubs have not lost any of them. Kalou's Chelsea won 29 and drew three of those matches, while Arsenal won 27 and drew five when Fabregas scored.
However, the most remarkable record of all belongs to Darius Vassell. He scored in 46 separate games for Aston Villa and Manchester City and his teams never lost, winning 36 times and drawing the other 10.
In terms of current players, the record still belongs to Manchester City as James Milner has played in 30 matches and not lost any of them (W24 D6). However, his last goal came in a 2-1 win against Manchester United in April.
Players with 15+ Premier League goals who have never lost a Premier League game they scored in:
| Player |
Games Scored In |
Games Won |
Games Drawn |
| Darius Vassell |
46 |
36 |
10 |
| Cesc Fabregas |
32 |
27 |
5 |
| Salomon Kalou |
32 |
29 |
3 |
| James Milner |
30 |
24 |
6 |
| Oyvind Leonhardsen |
28 |
21 |
7 |
| Aaron Lennon |
24 |
22 |
2 |
| Lee Sharpe |
19 |
17 |
2 |
| John Arne Riise |
19 |
13 |
6 |
| Denis Irwin |
18 |
15 |
3 |
| Bryan Roy |
18 |
15 |
3 |
| Michael Bridges |
17 |
13 |
4 |
| Park Ji-Sung |
17 |
16 |
1 |
| Antonio Valencia |
17 |
16 |
1 |
| Ray Parlour |
16 |
15 |
1 |
| Michael Ballack |
16 |
15 |
1 |
| Victor Anichebe |
16 |
10 |
6 |
| Michael Essien |
15 |
11 |
4 |
| Arjen Robben |
15 |
14 |
1 |
| Nemanja Vidic |
15 |
13 |
2 |
Men of many foes
Hi Martin. Following on from your Steven Gerrard goals breakdown it got me thinking about which player has scored against the most number of different Premier League teams. Gerrard has scored against 32 of the 46 that have played Premier League football and I'd be surprised if there were many players who have scored against more? Cheers, Martin (Liverpool fan who moved out to New Zealand)
Hello Martin. Which player has scored against every opposing team in the EPL or (English) FA affiliated competitions? Or if none, who has scored against the most opponents? My bet is that "Sir" Ryan has scored against almost every other team. Dav
MARTIN SAYS: You've both asked the same question there and with the help of Opta I can confirm that Steven Gerrard has scored against 32 of the 46 Premier League teams and Ryan Giggs has scored against 34. However, neither of them hold the record for the most Premier League teams scored against.
That honour is held jointly by both Frank Lampard and Andrew Cole, who have both scored against 38 of the 46 Premier League teams.
The only two teams that Cole played against in the Premier League and did not score against are Swindon and Reading. He played against both of those teams twice and did not score. He has never played against Blackpool, Burnley, Cardiff, Hull, Stoke or Swansea in the Premier League.
The eight teams Lampard has failed to score against are his current club Chelsea plus Watford, QPR, Cardiff, Burnley, Ipswich, Swindon and Oldham - although he never played against the latter two clubs. He failed to break the record in Chelsea's home game against Cardiff last week and so will have to wait until the final game of the season to get another chance to do so.
Here are the players to have scored against 30 or more of the 46 teams in a Premier League game:
38: Andrew Cole, Frank Lampard
37: Alan Shearer
35: Teddy Sheringham
34: Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Thierry Henry, Michael Owen
33: Robbie Keane, Robbie Fowler, Les Ferdinand, Nicolas Anelka
32: Emile Heskey, Steven Gerrard, Jermain Defoe, Wayne Rooney
31: Dennis Bergkamp, Gary Speed, Dimitar Berbatov
30: Duncan Ferguson, Chris Armstrong, James Beattie, Kevin Phillips, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Gabriel Agbonlahor
Big scoring clashes
Martin, After reading that Newcastle & Liverpool haven't played out a goalless draw in over 40 years, it made me wonder ...which Premier League fixture has the highest aggregate score?? Michael Graham
MARTIN SAYS: Thanks to the boffins at Opta I can tell you that last weekend's 2-2 draw between Liverpool and Newcastle saw that fixture become the highest-scoring fixture in the Premier League years. There have now been 126 goals in that fixture, which is one more than has been scored in the North London derby between Arsenal and Tottenham. What's even more surprising is that Liverpool have only played Newcastle 39 times in the Premier League years compared to 43 North London derbies (Newcastle have spent two seasons outside the top flight in that time) and yet it is still the game with the most goals.
I can confirm that the aggregate score in the Premier League years would be Liverpool 82-44 Newcastle. That contrasts to Arsenal 73-52 Tottenham in the North London derby.
Highest aggregate scored in the Premier League:
Liverpool 82-44 Newcastle (126 goals in 39 games)
Arsenal 73-52 Tottenham (125 goals in 43 games)
Everton 37-84 Manchester United (121 goals in 42 games)
Liverpool 66-51 Tottenham Hotspur (117 goals in 42 games)
Manchester United 77-40 Newcastle (117 goals in 38 games)
Newcastle 61-56 Tottenham (117 goals in 38 games)
Arsenal 82-33 Everton (115 goals in 42 games)
Chelsea 78-37 Tottenham (115 goals in 43 games)
Arsenal 60-54 Chelsea (114 goals in 42 games)
Manchester United 80-34 Tottenham (114 goals in 42 games)
Waiting for three
Hi Martin. I love this column as I am a stats geek myself. Keep up the great work! Here's my question. It took 9 match weeks for a player to score a hat trick (Suarez). Is this the longest streak of games in a season without having anyone scoring a hat trick? Thanks, Liverpudlian
MARTIN SAYS: This is the second longest wait we've ever had at the start of a season for a Premier League hat-trick. As you suggested, we have held on until Matchday 9 for the first top-flight treble of the campaign and only in 2006/07 when we had to wait until Matchday 10 has it taken longer. That season, Manchester United's Wayne Rooney scored the first hat-trick on October 28.
We have detailed the first hat-trick of each season for you below. As you can see, on six occasions the first treble of the campaign was scored on the opening weekend:
The first hat-trick of each Premier League season:
| Date |
Player |
Team |
Opponent |
Game Number |
| 25/08/92 |
Eric Cantona |
Leeds United |
Tottenham Hotspur |
4 |
| 14/08/93 |
Mick Quinn |
Coventry City |
Arsenal |
1 |
| 27/08/94 |
Chris Sutton |
Blackburn Rovers |
Coventry City |
3 |
| 19/08/95 |
Matt Le Tissier |
Southampton |
Nottingham Forest |
1 |
| 17/08/96 |
Kevin Campbell |
Nottingham Forest |
Coventry City |
1 |
| 09/08/97 |
Dion Dublin |
Coventry City |
Chelsea |
1 |
| 22/08/98 |
Clive Mendonca |
Charlton Athletic |
Southampton |
2 |
| 11/08/99 |
Michael Bridges |
Leeds United |
Southampton |
2 |
| 23/08/00 |
Paulo Wanchope |
Manchester City |
Sunderland |
2 |
| 20/10/01 |
Robbie Fowler |
Liverpool |
Leicester City |
8 |
| 28/09/02 |
Michael Owen |
Liverpool |
Manchester City |
8 |
| 26/08/03 |
Teddy Sherringham |
Portsmouth |
Bolton Wanderers |
3 |
| 30/08/04 |
Yakubu |
Portsmouth |
Fulham |
3 |
| 12/09/05 |
Marlon Haywood |
West Ham United |
Aston Villa |
4 |
| 28/10/06 |
Wayne Rooney |
Manchester United |
Bolton Wanderers |
10 |
| 22/09/07 |
Emmanuel Adebayor |
Arsenal |
Derby County |
6 |
| 17/08/08 |
Gabriel Agbonlahor |
Aston Villa |
Manchester City |
1 |
| 19/08/09 |
Jermain Defoe |
Tottenham Hotspur |
Hull City |
2 |
| 14/08/10 |
Didier Drogba |
Chelsea |
West Bromwich Albion |
1 |
| 28/08/11 |
Edin Dzeko |
Manchester City |
Tottenham Hotspur |
3 |
| 02/09/12 |
Robin van Persie |
Manchester United |
Southampton |
3 |
| 26/10/13 |
Luis Suarez |
Liverpool |
West Bromwich Albion |
9 |
Before Luis Suarez, the most recent Premier League hat-tricks came on the final day of last season when Romelu Lukaku scored one for West Brom against Manchester United and Kevin Nolan scored one for West Ham against Reading - a gap of 160 days. That's the sixth longest gap between hat-tricks.
As you can see from the table below, we have twice gone 175 days without seeing a Premier League hat-trick - between the 2001/02 and 2002/03 seasons and between the 2006/07 and 2007/08 seasons. The longest wait we've had during a single season was the 141 days that passed between Nicolas Anelka scoring a hat-trick for Chelsea against Sunderland on November 1, 2008 and Steven Gerrard scoring for Liverpool against Aston Villa on March 22 that season.
Longest waits between Premier League hat-tricks:
| Hat-trick |
|
|
|
|
Previous hat-trick |
|
|
|
|
| Date |
Team |
Player |
Opponent |
Days between |
Date |
Team |
Player |
Opponent |
Same Season? |
| 28/09/2002 |
Liverpool |
Michael Owen |
Manchester City |
175 |
06/04/2002 |
Bolton Wanderers |
Fredi Bobic |
Ipswich Town |
NO |
| 22/09/2007 |
Arsenal |
Emmanuel Adebayor |
Derby County |
175 |
07/05/2006 |
Liverpool |
Peter Crouch |
Arsenal |
NO |
| 28/10/2006 |
Manchester United |
Wayne Rooney |
Bolton Wanderers |
174 |
07/05/2006 |
Arsenal |
Thierry Henry |
Wigan Athletic |
NO |
| 20/10/2001 |
Liverpool |
Robbie Fowler |
Leicester City |
168 |
05/05/2001 |
Liverpool |
Michael Owen |
Newcastle United |
NO |
| 12/09/2005 |
West Ham United |
Marlon Harewood |
Aston Villa |
163 |
02/04/2005 |
Arsenal |
Thierry Henry |
Norwich City |
NO |
| 26/10/2013 |
Liverpool |
Luis Suarez |
West Bromwich Albion |
160 |
19/05/2013 |
West Ham United |
Kevin Nolan |
Reading |
NO |
| 22/03/2009 |
Liverpool |
Steven Gerrard |
Aston Villa |
141 |
01/11/2008 |
Chelsea |
Nicolas Anelka |
Sunderland |
YES |
| 31/03/2007 |
Liverpool |
Peter Crouch |
Arsenal |
140 |
11/11/2006 |
Chelsea |
Didier Droga |
Watford |
YES |
Back-to-back-to-slack
Hi Mr Tyler, last week you answered a question regarding when was the last time Manchester United failed to win in two consecutive home games. Well this made me realise that they have gone 9 games (including the last game of last season) in the league without winning two consecutive games (DWDLWLLWD). Is this a record for them? What is the longest run of games in the Premier League have they had without winning two consecutive games? Anwar
MARTIN SAYS: You're absolutely right to say that Manchester United have played nine Premier League games at Old Trafford since consecutive home wins. They beat Norwich and Reading in March last season and since then their results have been as follows:
Man Utd 1-2 Man City
Man Utd 3-0 Aston Villa
Man Utd 0-1 Chelsea
Man Utd 2-1 Swansea
Man Utd 0-0 Chelsea
Man Utd 2-0 Crystal Palace
Man Utd 1-2 West Brom
Man Utd 1-1 Southampton
Man Utd 3-2 Stoke
They are currently one game shy of their longest run without back-to-back home wins. Back 1998, they beat Everton on Boxing Day and Tottenham in January and then did not win back-to-back games for the rest of the season.
In total, they played 10 home league games without winning consecutive matches with the run coming to an end in September 1998 when they beat Charlton and Coventry back-to-back. Their record for those games was W4 D4 L2 and the results were as follows:
Man Utd 0-1 Leicester
Man Utd 1-1 Bolton
Man Utd 2-0 Derby
Man Utd 0-1 Arsenal
Man Utd 2-0 Wimbledon
Man Utd 1-1 Liverpool
Man Utd 1-1 Newcastle
Man Utd 3-0 Leeds
Man Utd 2-2 Leicester
Man Utd 4-1 Charlton
You may also have noticed that Manchester United are currently on a 17-game run in the Premier League without winning any games back-to-back - that's their longest such run in their Premier League history. The last time they won consecutive league games was against Reading (h) and Sunderland (a) last March.
The last time Manchester United played more than 10 games without winning consecutive games was 12 games (up to September 2004) and their previous worst in the Premier League era was 13 matches (a run which ended in January 1999).
They need to beat Fulham on Saturday or Arsenal in their next home game to end these runs. However, they have just won three games in a row at Old Trafford - against Real Sociedad, Stoke and Norwich - in different competitions so that suggests a revival isn't that far away.
