From injury-time deciders to Italian managers in European Cup Finals... Martin Tyler has the stats.
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I was at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday to witness the English title being decided on goal difference for the first time ever. It was eventually settled by Sergio Aguero's 23rd league goal of season, which equalled the Manchester City individual scoring record for a Premier League season, set by Carlos Tevez in 2009/10. He has scored a total of 30 goals this season in 48 games. He had been crowned Man City's Player of the Year before the game, so it was very relevant that he scored the winner.
Mario Balotelli created the goal with his first assist of the season, as he became first Italian player to win the Premier League. Pablo Zabaleta, meanwhile, opened the scoring with his first goal of the season - and what a time to do it! Man City were the top scorers and boasted the best defensive record in the Premier League this season, which proves it was a deserved success.
Djibril Cisse continued his record of scoring or being sent off in every Premier League game he's played for QPR. He now has six goals and two red cards in eight games. However, QPR lost for fifth final day in a row - although it didn't seem like a defeat!
Gael Clichy, Carlos Tevez and Kolo Toure joined Nicolas Anelka, Ashley Cole and Henning Berg by becoming Premier League winners with two clubs. Stuart Taylor and Owen Hargreaves won medals with Arsenal and Man Utd respectively, but do not qualify for a medal with City.
INSULT TO INJURY TIME
Hi Martin. I'm a Man United fan and it's been a fairly horrible few days to be honest with you. People always say that we benefit from injury time but I'd be interested to see which team, on average, has had the most added-on time this year. I bet it's City. Also, can you show us what the table would look like if you removed goals scored after the 90th minute? I bet we'd be champions? Thanks, Rick (Man Utd fan)
MARTIN SAYS: Opta have given us the average match length for each of the 20 Premier League teams this season. You might be interested to discover that the Manchester clubs, on average, have played less injury time than most of the other teams.
Manchester United have had the joint-least (with Bolton) amount of injury time per game - on average 5mins 24secs across both halves. Manchester City have had an average of 10 seconds more per game. Wigan Athletic have had the most with an average of 6mins 12 secs per match.
Average game length for each Premier League team this season:
Wigan Athletic: 96m 12s
Stoke City: 96m 10s
Newcastle United: 96m 9s
Arsenal: 96m 4s
Chelsea: 95m 58s
Norwich City: 95m 57s
Blackburn Rovers: 95m 57s
Everton: 95m 56s
Aston Villa: 95m 55s
Tottenham Hotspur: 95m 52s
Sunderland: 95m 48s
West Brom: 95m 47s
Wolves: 95m 42s
Queens Park Rangers: 95m 42s
Fulham: 95m 41s
Liverpool: 95m 41s
Swansea City: 95m 39s
Manchester City: 95m 34s
Manchester United: 95m 24s
Bolton Wanderers: 95m 24s
As you suspect, if goals scored after the 90th minute are excluded then Manchester United would be champions. City have scored eight injury-time goals in the league and have conceded only one and have gained four points after the 90th minute. United have scored just four injury time goals this term and have only picked up an additional two points as a result.
Under this criteria, Tottenham would have finished third and QPR would have been relegated, which shows how important it is to play to the final whistle!
Premier League table if goals scored after the 90th minute are excluded:
| Team |
P |
W |
D |
L |
F |
A |
GD |
Pts |
Difference |
| Man Utd |
38 |
27 |
6 |
5 |
85 |
30 |
55 |
87 |
-2 |
| Man City |
38 |
26 |
7 |
5 |
83 |
28 |
55 |
85 |
-4 |
| Tottenham |
38 |
20 |
9 |
9 |
62 |
39 |
23 |
69 |
0 |
| Arsenal |
38 |
18 |
11 |
9 |
68 |
46 |
22 |
65 |
-5 |
| Newcastle |
38 |
19 |
8 |
11 |
52 |
49 |
3 |
65 |
0 |
| Chelsea |
38 |
17 |
10 |
11 |
59 |
43 |
16 |
61 |
-3 |
| Fulham |
38 |
14 |
12 |
12 |
47 |
44 |
3 |
54 |
2 |
| Liverpool |
38 |
13 |
13 |
12 |
44 |
36 |
8 |
52 |
0 |
| Everton |
38 |
13 |
13 |
12 |
46 |
39 |
7 |
52 |
-4 |
| Swansea |
38 |
13 |
10 |
15 |
42 |
48 |
-6 |
49 |
2 |
| Norwich |
38 |
13 |
9 |
16 |
50 |
61 |
-11 |
48 |
1 |
| Sunderland |
38 |
10 |
15 |
13 |
41 |
42 |
-1 |
45 |
0 |
| West Brom |
38 |
12 |
9 |
17 |
42 |
50 |
-8 |
45 |
-2 |
| Stoke |
38 |
11 |
12 |
15 |
34 |
50 |
-16 |
45 |
0 |
| Wigan |
38 |
11 |
11 |
16 |
40 |
58 |
-18 |
44 |
1 |
| Aston Villa |
38 |
7 |
17 |
14 |
36 |
49 |
-13 |
38 |
0 |
| Bolton |
38 |
11 |
5 |
22 |
44 |
74 |
-30 |
38 |
2 |
| QPR |
38 |
10 |
7 |
21 |
40 |
64 |
-24 |
37 |
0 |
| Blackburn |
38 |
9 |
8 |
21 |
47 |
71 |
-24 |
35 |
4 |
| Wolves |
38 |
5 |
10 |
23 |
40 |
81 |
-41 |
25 |
0 |
MORE TO SCORE
Dear Martin. It has struck me that one of the keys to Manchester City's success this season has been the number of players who have contributed to scoring goals for them. Have any of the previous champions had more different goalscorers than City? Craig (Arsenal fan)
MARTIN SAYS: On Sunday Pablo Zabaleta became the 16th different Premier League scorer for Manchester City this season. Their goalscorers are as follows:
Agüero (23), Dzeko (14), Balotelli (13), Johnson (6), Silva (6), Yaya Touré (6), Nasri (5), Tévez (4), Kompany (3), Milner (3), Kolarov (2), Lescott (2), Barry (1), Richards (1), Savic (1), Zabaleta (1)
Only one of the 19 previous Premier League championship-winning sides boasted more goalscorers than this. That was the Manchester United side of 2006/07, which boasted 17 different scorers as follows:
Ronaldo (17), Rooney (14), Saha (8), Solskjaer (7), Scholes (6), Park (5), O'Shea (4), Giggs (4), Vidic (3), Carrick (3), Fletcher (3), Evra (1), Silvestre (1), Eagles (1), Richardson (1), Larsson (1), Ferdinand (1).
It's a world away from the United team of 2002/03, who won the league despite having just nine different goalscorers:
Van Nistelrooy (25), Scholes (14), Solskjaer (9), Giggs (8), Forlan (6), Beckham (6), Veron (2), P Neville (1), Silvestre (1)
ITALIAN JOB
Dear Martin, This weekend I heard the remarkable statistic that Mario Balotelli is the FIRST Italian to win a Premier League title. Since Italy must have been in the top 10 of the FIFA World Rankings for nigh-on the entirety of the 20 seasons since the Premier League's inception, it is all the more unthinkable! So... my question is this. Are there are any other countries currently in the top 20 of the rankings who have failed to produce a player to have won the Premier League? Thanks for your time, Steady Eddie, Wolverhampton
MARTIN SAYS: In the current FIFA World Rankings, only four of the top 20 countries have failed to produce a Premier League-winning player. These are Croatia (ranked 8th), Chile (ranked 13th), Greece (ranked 14th) and Switzerland (ranked joint 18th).
Indeed, Mario Balotelli is the first Italian player to win the Premier League, although we have now seen two Italian managers win the biggest prize in England - Carlo Ancelotti and Roberto Mancini.
Last season Mexico gained a Premier League winner's medal for the first time through Javier Hernandez, while Uruguay and Denmark are the other top-20 teams to have produced only one title-winner with Manchester United's Diego Forlan and Peter Schmeichel respectively.
Also on Sunday, Vincent Kompany became the first Belgian and Edin Dzeko became the first player from Bosnia-Herzegovina to win the Premier league - but those nations are not in the top 20 of the FIFA rankings.
Below is a table that breaks down the success of the top 20 national teams. See if you can guess the identities of all the players!
| FIFA ranking |
Team |
Title winners |
Total medals |
| 1 |
Spain |
4 |
4 |
| 2 |
Germany |
3 |
4 |
| 3 |
Uruguay |
1 |
1 |
| 4 |
Holland |
10 |
19 |
| 5 |
Portugal |
7 |
15 |
| 6 |
Brazil |
7 |
11 |
| 7 |
England |
67 |
145 |
| 8 |
Croatia |
0 |
0 |
| 9 |
Argentina |
6 |
8 |
| 10 |
Denmark |
1 |
5 |
| 11 |
Russia |
3 |
4 |
| 12 |
Italy |
1 |
1 |
| 13 |
Chile |
0 |
0 |
| 14 |
Greece |
0 |
0 |
| 15 |
Ivory Coast |
4 |
7 |
| 16 |
France |
21 |
42 |
| 17 |
Sweden |
3 |
4 |
| 18 |
Republic of Ireland |
5 |
22 |
| 19 |
Switzerland |
0 |
0 |
| 20 |
Mexico |
1 |
1 |
ON HOME SOIL
Martin. It seems unfair that Bayern Munich will get to play a Champions League Final in their own stadium. Can you tell me how many other teams have played European Finals in their own ground and what their success rate has been like? Marcus (Chelsea fan)
MARTIN SAYS: I can tell you that two teams have won the European Cup with the final played at their own ground. The first was
Real Madrid, who beat Fiorentina 2-0 at the Bernabeu in 1957 and the other was
Inter Milan, who beat Benfica 1-0 at the San Siro in 1965.
Roma almost made it a third in 1984, but lost to Liverpool on penalties at the Stadio Olimpico.
As for the UEFA Cup, that competition was played over two legs up until 1998, so effectively every winner played the final at their own ground. But since the introduction of single-match finals at supposedly neutral venues in 1998, one team has won on their own ground. That team was
Feyenoord, who beat Borussia Dortmund 3-2 at the Feijenoord Stadion (De Kuip) in 2002.
Sporting Lisbon got to a final on their own ground, but lost 3-1 to CSKA Moscow at the Estádio José Alvalade in 2005.
Out of interest, the Cup Winners Cup - which was played in one-off finals from 1962 to 1999 - never saw a team play on their own ground.
BOSSING IT
Dear Martin. I'm wondering if Roberto di Matteo could be a lucky charm for us in the Champions League Final. Are teams more likely to win the European Cup with an Italian in charge? They seem to have had a good record over the years thinking back to Capello, Lippi, Ancelotti etc.Kenny (Chelsea fan)
MARTIN SAYS: No nation has produced more European Cup winning managers than Italy. As you can see from the table below, six Italians - Nereo Rocco, Giovanni Trapattoni, Arigo Sacchi, Fabio Capello, Marcello Lippi and Carlo Ancelotti have won nine European Cups between them. Roberto di Matteo will be hoping to add his name to that distinguished list on Saturday.
Nine European Cup winning sides have been led to glory by Spanish managers too, but Pep Guardiola was only the fifth man to do. Four Spaniards have won the European Cup twice - Rafael Benitez is the only Spanish gaffer to win it one just one occasion.
Four Englishmen have managed their teams to European Cup glory - Bob Paisley (3), Brian Clough (2), Tony Barton and Joe Fagan - but Fagan's success with Liverpool in 1984 has prompted a 28-year wait for another. Harry Redknapp will be hoping Bayern Munich afford him the chance to have a go with Tottenham next season!
Nationalities of European Cup winning managers:
| Nationality |
Number of wins |
Number of managers |
Names |
| Italy |
9 |
6 |
Nereo Rocco (2)
Giovanni Trapattoni
Arigo Sacchi (2)
Fabio Capello
Marcello Lippi
Carlo Ancelotti (2) |
| Spain |
9 |
5 |
Jose Villalonga (2)
Miguel Munoz (2)
Vincente del Bosque (2)
Rafael Benitez
Pep Guardiola (2) |
| England |
7 |
4 |
Bob Paisley (3)
Brian Clough (2)
Tony Barton
Joe Fagan |
| Germany |
6 |
4 |
Udo Lattek
Dettmar Cramer
Ottmar Hitzveld (2)
Jupp Heynckes |
| Netherlands |
5 |
5 |
Rinus Michels
Guus Hiddink
Johan Cruyff
Louis van Gaal
Frank Rijkaard |
| Argentina |
4 |
2 |
Luis Carniglia (2)
Helenio Herrera (2) |
| Scotland |
4 |
3 |
Jock Stein
Sir Matt Busby
Sir Alex Ferguson (2) |
| Portugal |
3 |
2 |
Artur Jorge
Jose Mourinho (2) |
| Romania |
3 |
2 |
Stefan Kovacs (2)
Emerich Jenei |
| Hungary |
2 |
1 |
Bela Guttmann (2) |
| Austria |
2 |
1 |
Ernst Happel (2) |
| Yugoslavia |
1 |
1 |
Ljupko Petrovic |
| Belgium |
1 |
1 |
Raymond Goethals |
I'll be in the commentary box with Gary Neville in Munich on Saturday. Don't forget to tune in on Sky Sports!
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