Carsley’s England Legacy, Foul Play, and the Oldest Goalscorers

By Opta Analyst | Created at 2024-11-19 17:33:21 | Updated at 2024-11-19 20:54:35 3 hours ago

Stat, Viz, Quiz is the Opta Analyst football newsletter. This week’s edition looks at Lee Carsley’s England legacy, foul numbers, and the Premier League’s oldest goalscorers.

Football moves forward, is constantly evolving and always brings up new stories. As we come into the second half of November 2024, Robert Lewandowski is outscoring everyone in Europe, Manchester United fans are optimistic about the future and Claudio Ranieri is back in management.

Ah well, there’s a lot to be said for nostalgia too.

Nothing changes about SVQ, though. It’s still here to provide the best bite-sized, stats-based football content on the planet, or at the very least, something that will make you utter “Hmm, that’s relatively interesting” on a Tuesday.

This week we’ll be looking at Lee Carsley’s short but ultimately sweet tenure as interim England manager, the teams being awarded and conceding the most fouls in Europe’s top five leagues, and the Premier League’s oldest goalscorers.

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

STAT – Carsley the Opportunity Creator

England’s final game of their latest UEFA Nations League campaign against Republic of Ireland at Wembley Stadium was a game of two halves, to say the least.

The first half saw the Three Lions struggle to break their resilient opponents down, but once Liam Scales was sent off for a second yellow card having tripped Jude Bellingham in the box, it was a different story.

England ran out 5-0 winners to secure promotion back to the top tier of the Nations League, and see Carsley sign off with a satisfying victory. In what was Carsley’s final game in charge before Thomas Tuchel takes over in 2025, it was the biggest win by a manager in their final match with the Three Lions since Graham Taylor in November 1993 (7-1 vs San Marino).

It was arguably appropriate to have a final game that still had its difficulties. England had a near perfect record under Carsley in his six games in charge following Gareth Southgate stepping aside after Euro 2024. They won five, but arguably the most memorable match of his tenure was the 2-1 loss to Greece at Wembley, which many feel cost Carsley a chance at being offered the job permanently.

That’s merely speculation, though, and given the Football Association appointed Tuchel just days later suggests talks with the German were already well advanced prior to the Greece defeat.

It will have been satisfying for Carsley to be able to avenge that loss with a 3-0 win in Athens last week, before the thrashing of Republic of Ireland to bring the campaign to a close.

Perhaps more satisfying for him, though, is one particular stat that came out of Sunday’s home victory. In Anthony Gordon, Conor Gallagher, Jarrod Bowen, and Taylor Harwood-Bellis, four players scored their first ever England goal in the same game for the first time since October 1930 against Northern Ireland (Harry Burgess, Jimmy Hampson, Sammy Crooks, Eric Houghton).

Giving new players an opportunity to showcase their talents at senior level was a theme of Carsley’s six games, in which he used a remarkable 32 different players. No player featured in all six games, but Harry Kane, Jordan Pickford, Gordon, Noni Madueke and Marc Guéhi played in five.

Of those 32 players, eight were handed their first senior cap by Carsley (Tino Livramento, Lewis Hall, Harwood-Bellis, Angel Gomes, Morgan Gibbs-White, Curtis Jones, Morgan Rogers and Madueke).

It leaves England in a strong position when Tuchel takes over, with the remit of guiding them to success at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

As for Carsley, he is likely to be heading back to lead the England Under-21s. He might rue calling up so many to the senior squad as he may have fewer to work with himself now, but presumably he’ll just give more chances to the next batch of potential stars.

VIZ – Foul Play

Fouls won-conceded 2024-25 Europe's top 5 leagues

Let’s face it, we’re never all going to agree on fouls. When the referee’s whistle goes to signal an infringement, half the stadium will think it’s a good call while the other half will foam at the mouth demanding justice due to the outrageous audacity of the official giving anything against their team.

These things even themselves out over a season, or so we’re told, but that doesn’t mean all teams generally commit and are awarded an even number of fouls.

And that’s proven by this week’s viz. As you can see above, some teams commit more fouls than others, and some win more than others. Or in some cases, both.

La Liga outfit Getafe are a fascinating team – who we’ll be writing about on the Opta Analyst website very soon – but one area where they stand out above others is in how often their games are stopped for fouls. In total, they have both won (190) and conceded (219) the most fouls of all teams in Europe’s top five leagues this season.

However, there have been more games played in La Liga than elsewhere, so looking at it on a per-game basis, Getafe have still conceded the most (16.9) but have only been awarded the third most (14.6). It means that if you choose to watch a Getafe game, don’t be surprised if it’s a little stop-start.

The team to be fouled the most times per game is Bologna (15.3) who, interestingly, have conceded the exact same amount. Fellow Serie A side Fiorentina have been fouled the second-most times on average (14.8), while the Premier League team to have been awarded the most fouls per game are Newcastle United (14.0).

At the other end of the scale, West Ham have been fouled the fewest times on average (7.6), just ahead of Manchester United with the third-fewest (8.6).

Two other Premier League teams are tied for conceding the fewest fouls, and while one might be fairly obvious, the other arguably isn’t. Manchester City have so much of the ball that it’s probably no surprise that they’re conceding just 6.9 fouls per game, but matching them are Brentford.

Only four teams in Europe’s top five leagues are winning fewer fouls than Thomas Frank’s side, so if you want to see uninterrupted flowing football, it seems that Brentford games are the place to bee… Sorry.

The Top Five European Leagues Quiz

For something a little different this week, we thought we’d have one question related to each of Europe’s top five leagues. Answers are at the bottom of the page.

1. Which La Liga player has created the most chances, both from open play and overall, in Europe’s top five leagues this season?

2. Paris Saint-Germain are getting used to life without Kylian Mbappé, but which PSG player is top of the Ligue 1 goalscoring charts after 11 games?

3. Which former Everton striker has the highest xG of any player in Serie A this season?

4. Which Bundesliga side have allowed their opponents the lowest xG of any team in Europe’s top five leagues?

5. Which Manchester United player has attempted more tackles than anyone else in Europe’s top five leagues?

Ask Opta

This week’s question comes from Stein-Erik Rutledal, who asks: “Do you have stats on the oldest goalscorer in the Premier League for every current PL club?”

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

Answer:

We do have those stats, and here they are. One player even features twice, and it probably won’t be that surprising to anyone to see who it is:

Arsenal – Dennis Bergkamp (36 years, 340 days vs West Brom)
Aston Villa – Peter Schmeichel (37y, 336d vs Everton)
Bournemouth – Jermain Defoe (35y, 175d vs Watford)
Brentford – Ben Mee (34y, 121d vs Nottingham Forest)
Brighton – Glenn Murray (36y, 129d vs West Ham)
Chelsea – Thiago Silva (39y, 198d vs Sheffield United)
Crystal Palace – Gary Cahill (35y, 45d vs Newcastle)
Everton – Richard Gough (37y 138d vs Southampton)
Fulham – Tim Ream (35y 332d vs Man City)
Ipswich – John Wark (37y 177d vs Blackburn)
Leicester City – Jamie Vardy (37y 288d vs Nottingham Forest)
Liverpool – Gary McAllister (36y 127d vs Bradford)
Man City – Fernandinho (36y, 361d vs Leeds)
Man Utd – Ryan Giggs (39y, 86d vs QPR)
Newcastle – Peter Beardsley (36y 56d vs Coventry)
Nottingham Forest – Stuart Pearce (34y, 346d vs Southampton)
Southampton – Graeme Le Saux (36y, 195d vs Norwich)
Tottenham – Teddy Sheringham (37y, 19d vs West Brom)
West Ham – Teddy Sheringham (40y, 268d vs Portsmouth)
Wolves – Paul Ince (36y, 123d vs Fulham)

You can read all about the Premier League’s oldest goalscorers on the Opta Analyst website.

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