City take home the Treble!
They’ve finally broken their Champions League curse
The football season has come to an end in spectacular style. Congratulations to Man City for winning the treble of the Premier League (PL), FA Cup and Champions League trophies in one season, only the 2nd team to do so after Man United in 1999
So now City have finished celebrating their success, let’s take a look at their stand out season
How successful have City been?
On plenty of measures, this is one of the best squads in history
They arguably have the world’s best striker in Erling Haaland. He scored 52 goals in all competitions, including 36 PL, 12 Champions League and 3 FA Cup and 1 League Cup goals
His Premier League total is the largest ever scored by a single player in one season, beating the previous record of 34 goals which had been shared by Alan Shearer and Andy Cole. Considering they did this back when PL teams played 42 games in a season, this makes Haaland’s achievement even more incredible
These 52 PL goals included 6 hat-ricks, the most that any player has scored for an English club in all competitions
He’s now the joint-fastest player to reach 10 PL goals (six matches), and the fastest to reach 15 goals (nine matches), 20 goals (14 matches), 25 goals (19 matches) and 30 goals (27 matches)
And while I could write an article just about Haaland with the number of records he’s broken, he wasn’t their only player. There’s too many to name individually, but a few worth calling out are:
- Kevin de Bruyne won the playmaker of the year award after his 28 assists (16 of which in the PL), more than any other player in England this season. However, even this wasn’t his best total - he got 20 PL assists in 2019-20 to equal Thierry Henry’s record from 2002-03
- Ilkay Gündogan may not have scored or assisted the most goals, but the 17 goals he was involved in (11 goals, 6 assists) were certainly some of the most important, including 2 in the FA Cup final against Man United
- Their keeper, Ederson, was pipped to the golden glove by David de Gea, but still achieved an impressive 19 clean sheets in all competitions with only 40 goals conceded overall
- Ederson also got 1 assist, at home to Brighton in October 2022, and became the fastest player in PL history to reach 150 wins, achieving it in 197 matches
- While Phil Foden’s season was interrupted by injury, he still reached the 50-goal mark for his club and was City’s 2nd-top scorer. He also became the youngest player to reach the 50 goal milestone under Guardiola, even beating Lionel Messi…
- Despite being a substitute for most of the season, Julián Álvarez scored an impressive 24 goals (including 5 goals at the world cup for Argentina). In the Premier League in particular, he was City’s 3rd highest scorer with 9 goals, despite only starting 13 matches and splaying 1,465 minutes (equivalent to 16 full games)
- Álvarez also become the only player to ever win the treble of Domestic League, Domestic Cup, Champions League and also World Cup (which he won with Argentina in December) in the same season
And who can forget their manager, Pep Guardiola
This was his 7th season in charge of City having joined in 2016. In this time, he’s won 300 matches in all competitions and also recorded his 100 PL home win in the 4–1 victory against Liverpool at the Etihad stadium. Guardiola achieved this after only 128 home games, the quickest for any manager to reach this milestone
He’s also now won 11 league titles in his first 14 seasons in charge of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Man City (not a bad return)
How does this season compare to previous seasons?
This is City’s 4th Premier League title in 5 seasons (and 3 in the last 3), cementing their place in history as one of the best sides to compete in England
This also means that since Guardiola took over as manager seven years ago, City have won 625 points out of the 798 on offer (78% of total, ahead of Liverpool who are next highest with 575 in that time, 72%)
While this season has been impressive, it arguably hasn’t been their most impressive (at least domestically)
They finished the 2022–23 season on 89 points from their 38 league games. An impressive total, although not their highest ever:
- City won the record for the most points in a single season when they reached 100 points in 2017/18 (the only Premier League team to ever achieve this)
- While they only lost 1 match in 2017/18, City lost 5 matches during this most recent campaign (including losing home and away to Brentford)
But one key difference this season was their success in Europe
To get to the final, they also had to beat some of the best teams in Europe including Bayern Munich in the Quarter-Finals and Real Madrid in the Semis. Having said that, their final opponents, Inter Milan, were not the calibre of opponent that they faced earlier in the competition
According to ClubElo (a website that tracks football teams’ performance over time using Elo, a statistical rating system), City’s ranking of 2,073 was 182 points above Inter’s. This is the biggest gap in a Champions League final since the competition rebranded in 1993. Inter was also the lowest ranked team to reach the final since Chelsea in 2012
So, other than stats about City, what are some of the best stats from this season?
Well…
- More goals were scored this season than in any other (1,084 vs. 1,072 in 2018-19)
- And that’s not surprising considering some of the high scoring games that happened. Liverpool’s 9–0 victory over Bournemouth was the joint-largest victory, equally the same scoreline as Manchester United vs. Ipswich (1994–95), Man United vs. Southampton (2020–21), and Leicester City vs. Southampton (2019–20)
- Plus, Brentford 3–3 Brighton was the first time every outfielder (yes, all 20 of them) took at least 2 shots on goal each
- Harry Kane was once again prolific, scoring 30 goals in the season (beaten only by Haaland). One record he did achieve, though, was scoring these goals in 26 PL matches, a record
- Arsenal had a great season until they were pipped to top spot by City in the closing stages of the season. They spent 248 days at the top of the table, more than any other team who hasn’t gone on to win the title
- Arsenal also now have the youngest ever PL footballer in Ethan Nwaneri who made his debut at 15 years and 181 days, the first player to make their first appearence before their 16th birthday
- And Gabriel Jesus achieved his own record in Arsenal’s 3–1 win over Chelsea. It was the 55th game in a row in which he’d scored where his team had also won - talk about a lucky talisman!
- Andrew Robertson, Liverpool’s left back and captain, now holds the record for the most assists for a defender with 57 (the previous record was held by Leighton Baines, 53)
- Aston Villa had a fantastic second half of the season under Unai Emery. The former Arsenal manager’s team scored a goal in each of his first 20 matches, more than any other manager has achieved
- Villa won 49 points in 25 games under Emery, which would put them 3rd in the table after Man City (57) and Man United (52) if the table was calculated from his first game
- Chelsea started the season with Thomas Tuchel in charge, but earned the record of having more managers in their PL history than any other club after they sacked him (25 in total, which at the time was joint with Tottenham). They’ve since extended this lead having had 4 bosses in total this season (5 if you count Mauricio Pochettino who joined the club shortly after the season ended)
- Nottingham Forest’s starting team vs. Tottenham in August was the first to feature only British and Northern Irish players in over 10 years (Blackpool vs. Man United in 2011)
- This is only for 4th time that all three promoted teams have stayed in the top flight (previously in 2001-02, 2011-12 and 2017-18)
- Leicester City sadly became only the second team in history to have won a PL title and to have later been relegated, following Blackburn who won the title in 1994–95 and were then relegated in 1999–2000
- Leeds United also didn’t have a great season which was epitomised by their performances in April when they conceded 23 goals in a single month, the most ever (breaking their own record, 20, in Feb 2022)
- There were 39 different people (managers, interims, coaches, etc.) in charge of a team for at least one match over the season with 14 managerial changes over the course of the season
Check out other stats about Football:
- It has to be Haaland! You’re not laughing now…
- Qatar 2022 - It’s been a Scorcher! FIFA’s experiment produces a thrilling finale
- Covid-19 and Professional Football; Elite footballers suffer at the hands of the hands of the pandemic
