Best EPL Stats of the Season
The 2023/24 season has come to an end. It was a spectacular one, in which we have seen plenty of records broken and a lot of drama in every one of the 20 stadiums.
We have already handed out our EPLNews season awards, drawn our conclusions, and started our team-based season reviews with Manchester City and Arsenal.
And now it is time to look at the best Premier League stats of the recently finished season.
Goals Galore
The 2023/24 season registered 1084 goals scored, surpassing the record of 1072 set in the 2018/19 campaign. The new record is the highest number of goals in a season with 38 matchdays, and the highest since 1994/95.
Manchester City’s Erling Haaland took home the Golden Boot for the second season in a row, after he scored 27 goals. And he netted 38 in all competitions for City this term, which is more than club legend Sergio Aguero in his best season for the club.
A big part of the high number of goals was conceded by Sheffield United. As if finishing 20th with only 16 points was not bad enough for the Blades, they also shipped 104 goals, which is now the record for a single EPL campaign. And their goal difference of -69 is also a record, tied with Derby County’s 2007/08 season.
Oh, and another one for Sheffield: no Premier League team has ever conceded 57 goals at home in one season.
Manchester City’s Phil Foden set a club record by scoring 6 goals from outside the box this season.
While Ollie Watkins scored ‘only’ 19 goals in the Prem this term, he has 27 in all competitions, which is as much as his last 2 seasons combined. He sure has evolved, hasn’t he?
Assists
And here we are talking about Watkins again. His 13 Premier League assists ensured that he won the Playmaker of the Season award.
Kevin De Bruyne now ranks 2nd for number of assists in EPL history, with 112, behind Ryan Giggs and his 162. However, the Belgian got his tally in only 260 games, as opposed to the former United player who needed 632 appearances for his record.
The highest number of goal involvements this season belongs to Chelsea’s Cole Palmer, with 33 (22G, 11A).
Individuals
Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk had the highest percentage of aerial duel wins this season, with 81.4%.
Manchester City’s Rodri has been a jack of all trades this season, being the only player to achieve this:
https://x.com/Squawka/status/1792442884064460902
Rodri leads the way in terms of total passes in the EPL as well, with 3633, which is 421 more than 2nd-placed Lewis Dunk.
David Raya’s 16 clean sheets earned him the Golden Glove award. He registered 3 more than his closest competitor, Everton’s Jordan Pickford.
There were only 2 outfield players who played all available EPL minutes this season: Maximilian Kilman (Wolves) and William Saliba (Arsenal).
Relegated Teams, Points and Other Stats
For only the 2nd time in Premier League history, all 3 promoted teams (Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton) went straight back down to the Championship, matching the ‘achievement’ of Bolton, Barnsley and Crystal Palace in 1997/98.
Manchester City registered 0 home defeats this season.
Chelsea (105 yellow cards) and Burnley (7 red cards) were the most ill-disciplined teams in the 2023/24 season.
Arsenal have improved their points total for the 4th season in a row under Mikel Arteta: 61 in 2020/21, 69 in 2021/22, 84 in 2022/23 and 89 this season.
Crystal Palace have made 788 tackles, leading the division in this metric.
While Arsenal and City have secured 28 wins each this season (most), Sheffield United have lost the same number of games, while only winning 3.
Luck always plays a part in any Premier League campaign, and the following 5 players did not have much of it: Daiki Hashioka (Luton Town), Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa), Konstantinos Mavropanos (West Ham), Antonee Robinson (Fulham) and Jack Robinson (Sheffield United). What do they have in common? They each scored 2 own goals this EPL season, which is a record.
And we will end with the unlucky theme. No player has hit the woodwork more than Liverpool’s Darwin Núñez this season. His 9 close calls are almost as many as the next 2 players combined in this statistic (Jarrod Bowen – 5, Ollie Watkins – 5).
It is no wonder then that Liverpool also lead the way for number of times a club has hit the frame of the goal this term, with 25.