By Opta Analyst | Created at 2024-12-23 12:43:26 | Updated at 2024-12-23 17:33:20
4 hours ago
Tottenham scored three goals without ever looking like winning, and Liverpool broke record after record. Here are eight standout stats from a truly crazy Premier League game.
On Sunday afternoon, Tottenham and Liverpool played out one of the least exciting nine-goal games you could imagine.
After Liverpool went ahead in the 23rd minute – and with hindsight, probably even earlier than that – there was only ever one winner.
Even when Spurs brought it back from 5-1 to 5-3 with seven minutes to go, any hope of a grandstand finish was swiftly banished when Luis Díaz scored Liverpool’s sixth just two minutes later.
In all, it was about as one-sided a game as a 6-3 could be.
It may not have been the thriller the scoreline might have suggested, but if it was to be described as anything, ‘crazy’ would be an adequate and fitting adjective.
And from a crazy game came a hell of a lot of crazy statistics. Here, we’ve put the best of them together.
Salah the Goal and Assist Machine: Part 1
Mohamed Salah has scored and assisted in seven different Premier League games for Liverpool this season, already the joint-most by a player in a single campaign in the competition.
If you want standout stats, you need look no further than Mohamed Salah’s start to 2024-25.
Without playing at his best (Díaz was given man of the match and Dominik Szoboszlai might have felt aggrieved not to have been), Salah had five shots by the 18th minute (without scoring) before racking up two goals and two assists from the 46th minute onwards.
It was the seventh game already this season in which he has both scored and set up a goal, which equals the Premier League record for a whole season. A reminder that Liverpool are only 16 games into a 38-game campaign.
If Salah fails to do it again this season, he will remain top alongside Alan Shearer in 1994-95, Thierry Henry in 2002-03, Robin van Persie in 2011-12, and Bruno Fernandes and Harry Kane in 2020-21. It’s very likely those players will drop into second, though.
Salah the Goal and Assist Machine: Part 2
Mohamed Salah is the first player in Premier League history to reach double figures for both goals and assists for a season before Christmas.
Salah now has 15 goals and 11 assists for 2024-25. He is the first player in the Premier League era to reach 10+ in both columns before Christmas Day.
He has also equalled Harry Kane’s record as the joint-quickest in terms of appearances by a player to hit double figures for both in a single campaign, with the former Tottenham forward doing it in 2020-21 (when the season’s start was delayed due to COVID-19 so he didn’t manage it by Christmas).
Salah the Goal and Assist Machine: Part 3
This is the sixth Premier League season in which Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah has both scored and assisted 10+ goals; the most of any player in the competition’s history.
Salah reaching double figures for both goals and assists in a season is nothing new. He’s done it more times than any other player in Premier League history, also doing so in 2017-18, 2019-20, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25.
Wayne Rooney (five) had previously held the record, but as long as Salah extends his stay in England beyond this season, he is likely to also extend his lead.
Slot’s Record-Breaking Start
Arne Slot has 21 wins from his first 25 competitive games as Liverpool manager – more than anyone else has managed in their first 25 matches as a Premier League manager
Top of the league at Christmas, a perfect record in the Champions League, and into the EFL Cup semi-finals; nobody could have predicted this start for Arne Slot, but they just keep on going.
He has now got more wins from his first quarter-century of matches in charge of a Premier League team than anyone else has ever managed. Antonio Conte is the only other manager who has achieved as many as 20, and he didn’t have Champions League football to contend with when he joined Chelsea.
Liverpool are the favourites to win both the Premier League and the Champions League according to the Opta supercomputer.
No Home Comforts for Tottenham
Tottenham have conceded the opening goal in 14 different home games in the Premier League in 2024; the joint-most ever by a team in a calendar year.
To break this record, you have to concede lots of goals. But you also can’t concede so many that you get relegated.
So, you are likely to be a relegation-threatened team who survive but then start the following season badly, too.
It really is something for Tottenham to have equalled a record also held by Crystal Palace in 2017 and Ipswich and Spurs themselves in 1994 when also harbouring hopes of getting back into the Champions League and ending their trophy drought. But this is Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham, and they are here to entertain.
It’s fair to say they are doing just that.
Postecoglou’s Record Goal Supply
Tottenham’s Premier League matches under Ange Postecoglou have seen an average of 3.6 goals scored per game (both teams combined). Among those to take charge of 50+ games in the competition, this is the highest goals-per-game rate by any manager.
“Are you not entertained?” Postecoglou asked after Tottenham nearly threw away a three-goal lead in their eventual 4-3 EFL Cup win over Manchester United on Thursday night.
Well, yes, Ange, of course we are. And with an average of 3.6 goals per Premier League game across his 18 months as Tottenham manager, there would be no justification for calling his matches anything other than entertaining.
The only problem is, way too many of those goals are going in at the wrong end as far as Spurs are concerned.
Tottenham’s Logic-Defying Goalscoring
Tottenham are the highest-scoring team in the Premier League this season and only three teams have a better goal difference. They are also 11th.
Spurs have outscored everyone else in the Premier League this season. With 39 goals in 17 games, they have scored at least 10 goals more than 14 of the other 19 teams, including Manchester City, Newcastle, Brighton and Aston Villa. They also have the best goal difference outside the current top three (+14).
They’ve now scored 3+ goals in more Premier League matches this season (nine) than any other team. They are also in the bottom half of the table.
The lowest position that the top-scoring team in a Premier League season has ever finished is fourth (Blackburn in 1992-93 and City in 2015-16). Spurs could be on course to smash that record.
Record-Breaking Chance Creation for Liverpool
Liverpool’s xG total of 5.63 in this match is their largest ever recorded in an away Premier League match.
Liverpool tore Tottenham apart on Sunday, creating chances worth 5.63 expected goals. It’s their highest total in an away Premier League game on record (since 2015-16), and the most by any team in a match this season.
Salah alone had chances worth 2.38 xG. Szoboszlai racked up 2.11 xG. Spurs managed 1.27 in total.
This really was as one-sided as a game that ended 6-3 could have been. The stats prove it was as crazy as they come, too.
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