The Five Best Premier League Stats from Matchday 8

After the latest weekend of 2024-25 action, our UK data insights team at OptaJoe have unearthed all sorts of facts. Here, we look at the best Premier League stats from Matchday 8.

Four Premier League games saw a team come from behind to win on Saturday; only once has there been more comeback wins on a single day in the history of the competition.

Only last week we pointed out that 2024-25 looks like the season of the Premier League comeback. That idea was reinforced across the nine matches this weekend with five comeback wins, including four on Saturday alone.

Only one day in Premier League history has ever witnessed more comeback victories than Saturday (four in seven games): Boxing Day 2013 (5).

Tottenham, Aston Villa, Leicester City and Manchester United all sealed wins in the Premier League on Saturday despite falling behind, with Manchester City also doing it against Wolves on Sunday.

Overall, 17 of the 79 matches played this season have featured a comeback win, meaning that 21.5% of games have seen a team turn around the match to end up with all three points. That’s the highest rate we’ve ever seen in a single Premier League season, with the previous highest being 16.6% last season.

Danny Welbeck registered his 100th Premier League goal involvement (72 goals, 28 assists) in Brighton’s win at Newcastle on Saturday.

Danny Welbeck scored the only goal of the game as Brighton won all three points away at Newcastle on Saturday.

Welbeck became the 85th player to reach a century of goal involvements in the Premier League, but of those players, only six took longer than the Brighton & Hove Albion forward.

Gareth Barry took the longest (476 apps), followed by Gary Speed (415), James Milner (397), Danny Murphy (385), James Ward-Prowse (374) and Damien Duff (351), with the Irishman taking 10 appearances more to hit the century than Welbeck (341).

Obviously, you’ll want to know who the quickest players were to 100 Premier League goal involvements. The honour belongs to Alan Shearer who sensationally managed 100 goal involvements inside his first 100 appearances as a Premier League player (yes, we know he played top-flight football before 1992).

Southampton have picked up eight Premier League red cards against Leicester, more than against any other opponent in the competition.

One of Saturday’s comeback wins came at St Mary’s, where Southampton were on the wrong side of a reversal. After leading 2-0 at half-time, Southampton surrendered the three points by conceding three times in the final 26 minutes, including the latest winning goal on record scored by Leicester in the competition (Jordan Ayew – 97:35).

Russell Martin’s side weren’t helped by a red card for Ryan Fraser as he gave away a penalty for pulling back Jamie Vardy when leading 2-1. Fraser’s red was Southampton’s eighth dismissal in the Premier League against Leicester.

That’s more than they have been given against any other club in the Premier League, but still some way off the competition record for red cards by one team against another.

That record belongs to Everton, who have been given 16 reds in Merseyside derby matches against Liverpool. Unsurprisingly, that fixture has seen the most red cards of any in Premier League history (23), with Liverpool seeing red seven times against Everton.

This season is the first campaign since 2011-12 that Arsenal have had as many as three players sent off in the opening eight matches of a Premier League season.

Arsenal received their third red card of the 2024-25 season this weekend, when William Saliba was dismissed in the first half of their defeat at Bournemouth. That follows red cards for Declan Rice and Leandro Trossard earlier this season and is already more than they were given in 2023-24 and 2022-23 combined (2).

While this is the first time that Arsenal have been given three red cards inside their opening eight games of a Premier League season, it’s not an overall competition record. Both Leicester City in 1994-95 and Liverpool last season were given four reds inside their opening eight games of the campaign. There have also been 19 other instances of a team being shown three red cards in their opening eight matches of a Premier League season, including Wolves last campaign.

The most that Arsenal have been given in a complete Premier League season came back in 1998-99, when they received seven across their 38 games.

The Premier League record for the most red cards shown to a team in a season stands at nine, set by both QPR in 2011-12 and Sunderland in 2009-10.

Manchester City completed 540 passes in Wolves’ half in Sunday’s match, the most by a team in an opposition’s half in a Premier League match since Arsenal against Sheffield United in March (544) and most by an opposing team at Molineux in a Premier League game ever.

Manchester City left it very late (again) to seal victory over Wolves at Molineux on Sunday afternoon, with John Stones their hero (again). Just like in the draw against Arsenal last month, Stones popped up in added time to rescue City. His header this weekend was timed at 94:34 and was the final act in a game that Man City dominated.

They had 77.6% possession and completed 657 passes overall, with 540 (82.1%) of those coming in the attacking half of the pitch.

Since Opta began collecting detailed pass data for the Premier League (2006-07), there have been 18 instances of a team completing more passes in the opposition half than City managed at Wolves on Sunday afternoon.

Unsurprisingly, 12 of those 18 have been by City under Pep Guardiola, with their tally of 680 successful passes in the opposition half in their 2-0 win over Sheffield United on 30 December 2023 the most ever recorded in a Premier League match.

Most Successful Opposition Half Passes by a Team in a Premier League Match

680 – Manchester City vs Sheffield United (30 December 2023)
660 – Manchester City vs Newcastle United (14 May 2021)
644 – Manchester City vs Wolverhampton Wanderers (14 January 2019)
637 – Chelsea vs Newcastle United (26 August 2018)
615 – Arsenal vs Swansea City (30 January 2018)

Rodri completed 118 of those by himself on that day, but that’s neither his record in a single game (123 vs West Ham in February 2020) nor the record by a player in a single Premier League match.

His Man City teammate Rúben Dias holds the record for the most completed passes in the opposition half of a Premier League match, with his 137 versus Crystal Palace on 16 December 2023.

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