Manchester City’s wait to be crowned as champions will have to go on a little longer after suffering defeat to Chelsea in the headline fixture of the weekend’s action, with Manchester United strengthening their position in second with yet another come-from-behind win.
Elsewhere the race for Champions League football has heated up with hopefuls Leicester, West Ham and Tottenham all losing, whilst Liverpool moved closer to the top four after beating Southampton at Anfield.
For now, we’ve got enough time to quickly reflect on some of the mouth-watering stats from the weekend’s action via OPTA stats.
• 4 – Joe Willock is the first Newcastle player to score in four consecutive Premier League matches since Papiss Cissé in April 2012 (6 games), while at 21 years of age he’s overtaken Andy Cole as the youngest player to do so for the club.
• 2016 – Paul Dummett has scored his third goal in his 140th Premier League appearance, and his first since January 2016 vs Man Utd. All three of his goals have come against sides starting the day in the top five positions in the table.
• 10 – Kelechi Iheanacho has scored 10 Premier League goals since the start of March, the most of any player. The only player to score more goals over this period in Europe’s top five leagues is fellow Nigerian Simy (12 in Serie A).
• 35 – There is an age difference of 35 years and 327 days between Leeds manager Marcelo Bielsa and Tottenham’s Ryan Mason, the second-biggest gap between two managers meeting in the competition, after Bobby Robson and Chris Coleman (37 years, 112 days).
• 8 – Stuart Dallas is the first Northern Ireland affiliated player to score eight Premier League goals in a single season since Chris Brunt in 2008-09.
• 9 – Dele Alli has registered his first Premier League assist in 16 games, since setting up Serge Aurier vs Wolves in March 2020, while the Englishman has only assisted Harry Kane (16) on more occasions in the competition than Son Heung-Min (9).
• 7 – Christian Benteke has scored more Premier League goals this season (7) than he managed in his previous three campaigns combined (6).
• 9 – Only Wilfried Zaha (12) has been directly involved in more Premier League goals for Crystal Palace this season than Ebere Eze (4 goals, 5 assists), with Eze’s tally of five assists the most by a Palace player this term.
• 10 – This was Sergio Agüero’s final league appearance against Chelsea for Man City – the Argentine has scored more Premier League goals against the Blues than any other player in the competition’s history (10, including two hat-tricks).
• 1 – Mohamed Salah’s assist for Sadio Mané’s header was the first time the duo have combined for a goal in the Premier League this season, last doing so vs Crystal Palace in June 2020.
• 11 – Since his Premier League debut in August 2017, Lewis Dunk has scored 11 goals in the competition, more than any other center-back in this time, overtaking Virgil van Dijk (10) with his header against Wolves.
• 7 – All of Adama Traoré’s seven Premier League goals have been scored in the second half, the most of any player to score all of his goals exclusively in the second half of matches.
• 3 – Bertrand Traoré is only the third Aston Villa player to score home and away against Manchester United in a Premier League season, after Julian Joachim in 1998-99 and Christian Benteke in 2014-15.
• 10 – For the tenth time this season, Manchester United have conceded the opening goal in an away Premier League game, however, the Red Devils are yet to lose on their travels when doing so, winning eight and drawing one of the other nine games.
• 27 – Bruno Fernandes has scored 27 goals for Manchester United in all competitions this season, the most by a midfield player for a Premier League club in a single campaign since Frank Lampard for Chelsea in 2009-10 (also 27).