By Brian Sears 11 December 2015 Fans of Southampton may be concerned after 15 games of this Premier League season to find their team in the bottom half of the table. But the Saints are still having their third best start out of their 17 seasons in the revamped top division. Here is a list of how […]

By Brian Sears 4 December 2015 In Arsene Wenger’s reign as the manager of Arsenal they have gained as many as 36 Premier League points from the first 14 games of a season (in 2007-08) and as few as 21 (in 2012-13) but the average for the Wenger era is 27. That’s the amount they’ve got so far this […]

By Brian Sears 27 November 2015 Just over a third of this Premier League season is complete and still the number of away wins remains unusually high, in fact on a par with the number of home wins. Of 130 games played, 48 have been away wins (the same as home wins), with 34 draws. We keep on […]

By Brian Sears 20 November 2015 The 20 Premier League clubs have all played their first 12 games of the 2015-16 season and Leicester are the team who have had the highest number of players – nine – who’ve featuring in every one of their club’s games so far, for at least a part of each game. Altogether […]

BOOK REVIEW By Daniel Storey 16 November 2015 I Believe In Miracles, Daniel Taylor’s account of Nottingham Forest’s European Cup-winning team, could not differ more greatly from the stereotype of non-fiction books accompanying films. So often they act as an extended advert for the cinematic production, DVD sales where profits are typically made. They adhere […]

By Brian Sears 6 November 2015 There is a strong relationship in the Premier League between goals scored and points accrued. It’s not always the case that a goal is worth a point, and certainly there will be outlier teams who score more goals than they amass points, and vice versa. But across the league as a […]

By Brian Sears 23 October 2015 Three derbies in the Premier League this weekend have seen recent trends that highlight a turning of the tide between the teams involved. One team in each of the three pairings was clearly a better or stronger or competitive side in their first tranche of meetings in the Premier […]

By Brian Sears 16 October 2015 None of the previous Premier League champions – and 23 of them since the inaugural 1992-93 breakaway season is a fair sized sample – won fewer than 14 points from their first eight games before going on to take the title. And only two managed it after winning as few as 14 points, […]

By Brian Sears 2 October 2015 It was four years, one month and a few days ago that this happened: Arsenal went to Old Trafford on 28 August 2011 and were given an absolute mauling as Manchester United thrashed and embarrassed them, 8-2, with Wayne Rooney scoring a hat-trick, Ashley Young getting two, and Danny Welbeck, Nani […]

By Brian Sears 25 September 2015 Newcastle have represented the north-east of England in the Premier League in 22 of the 24 seasons since the 1992-93 revamp, this season included. Sunderland have been in the PL for 15 of the 24 years and Middlesbrough, currently in an automatic promotion spot in the Championship, for 14 of 24. Newcastle have by any […]