On the Sunday before last, if Tottenham and Aston Villa had tied, the top five teams in the Premier League would have had a point distribution of 30-29-28-27-26, as pointed out by Christopher Zorn. What are the longest and highest instances of this type of point sequence happening?
The goal scored by Ollie Watkins for Aston Villa at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium may have stopped an interesting fact from being discovered, but our readers have come across numerous other instances.
Starting with Gareth Thomas’ statement, the League Two table on February 24, 2021 showed that the top 10 teams were only separated by one point, which is especially remarkable considering it was after 28 games.
1 Cambridge United 52 pts
2 Forest Green Rovers 51
3 Cheltenham Town 50
4 Morecambe 49
5 Tranmere Rovers 48
6 Newport County 47
7 Exeter City 46
8 Salford City 45
9 Bolton Wanderers 44
10 Carlisle United 43
In the 2. Bundesliga season, Ben Clay once again achieved a top 10 placement after 13 rounds.
These top 10s are very impressive, but how about an entire league? This is a contender for greatest Knowledge answer of all time. “Surely nothing can top this from the Finnish top flight in the first week of May 2015,” tweets Wayne Ziants.
The previous instances were during the middle of the season. Expert analyst Chris Roe has examined final season standings in the highest four divisions of English football to determine any similarities. Chris states, “There is a distinct victor.” In the 1951-52 season, Blackpool placed ninth with 45 points in the top division. This set off a chain of ten teams, with Middlesbrough finishing in 18th place with 36 points.
The sequence could have been longer if not for the fact that the fifth to eighth place teams were only separated by one point. However, the longer sequence was disrupted by the eighth and ninth place teams sharing a score of 45. The next best sequence, which occurred in five different seasons, only had seven teams in it.
Dismissals of Premier League managers that occur late in the season.
Jonas Sørensen inquires about the earliest a manager has been fired in a Premier League season.
Similar to everyone else, Jonas was aware that Paul Heckingbottom was going to be officially dismissed from his position as manager of Sheffield United. The announcement of his firing was made on December 5th, making it the sixth-latest dismissal in the history of the Premier League. This is the result of Watford no longer experiencing frequent changes in their level of success.
There have been only two instances in the Premier League where a manager has not been dismissed before the year’s end. In 1995-96, Roy McFarland, one of the co-managers of Bolton, was fired on January 2nd, resulting in his colleague Colin Todd taking charge and ultimately leading the team to relegation. As anyone who has watched Premier League Years repeatedly may know, Ian Porterfield holds a distinctive role in the history of English football.
“Be cautious of the 15th of February. On this date in 1993, Porterfield was the initial manager in the Premier League era to be fired from his position by Ken Bates. Dave Webb took over as his replacement. At the time, Chelsea was ranked 11th, surpassing teams like Arsenal, Liverpool, and the reigning champions Leeds. However, they were also struggling with a losing streak of 11 consecutive league games. The announcement of Porterfield’s departure was reportedly made through Chelsea’s official telephone service by Bates.”
Porterfield was the sole manager to be dismissed in the initial season. We confidently wager that Heckingbottom will not face a similar fate. The world of English football has not always been a spectacle for reality TV, thus it is likely that there were numerous seasons in the past when managers were not fired until March or later. We will attempt to gather this information for our upcoming column.
Which team has had the highest number of managers from England?
“Following the unfortunate news about Terry Venables, I reflected on his challenging tenure at Leeds and later, his successful stint as the national coach,” shares First Touch Phil. “Leeds has had four managers who have all held the position of English national team coach at some point in their careers. Is this a record?”
We are pleased to announce that Ben Raza has put in a lot of effort for this.
According to my calculation, when interim positions are taken into account, the different England managers have collectively overseen a total of 83 clubs. Four of those managers have led Leeds (Don Revie, Terry Venables, Howard Wilkinson, and Sam Allardyce), which is equal to the number of managers for Crystal Palace (Venables, Peter Taylor, Allardyce, and Roy Hodgson), Manchester City (Joe Mercer, Kevin Keegan, Stuart Pearce, Sven Goran-Eriksson, and Stuart Pearce), and Newcastle (Keegan, Bobby Robson, Allardyce, and Steve McClaren).
Is it possible to divide them based on their goal difference? Yes, because Crystal Palace had Terry Venables and Roy Hodgson as managers for two separate periods each. Therefore, Leeds does not qualify. [It is worth noting that Crystal Palace was also led by Gareth Southgate, which could be used as another factor to break a tie – Knowledge Ed] In total, 21 teams have hired more than one former or future England national team coach, including well-known European clubs like Roma and Barcelona, as well as smaller clubs like QPR and Notts County.
Fulham and Middlesbrough have both had three former or future England managers on their staff. Although Sven and Roy have some unfamiliar names on their early resumes, Peter Taylor is to be commended for starting his managerial journey in the lower leagues in the 1980s. He eventually reached the position of England manager in November 2000, but has since returned to lower league management.
“He recently departed from Maldon & Tiptree, a team in the Isthmian North Division. I believe this may be part of a larger strategy to reclaim dominance in England, possibly in two games during the late-2030s.”
The quickest goal-scoring players on either side.
Giles Skerry inquires if Son Heung-min’s goal and own-goal combination within nine minutes of the match against Manchester City is the quickest on record.
Nope! In the Premier League, Gareth Barry scored at both ends seven minutes into the match when his Aston Villa side lost 4-3 at home to Charlton Athletic in May 1999. If you think that’s embarrassing, wait until you see the assist for his equaliser.
Is anyone able to surpass that? If so, please contact me.
Knowledge archive
In 2022, Nayson tweeted that there was a gap of approximately three minutes and 40 seconds between Sébastien Haller scoring an own goal and scoring a goal against Benfica. We found this information interesting due to Son’s eventful weekend in Manchester. What is the shortest amount of time a player has scored at both ends of the field?
There are numerous individuals who belong to the “scored at both ends” club, but it is difficult to find a player who has achieved it faster than the Ajax striker. A reader, Robert Davies, shared a player who also scored in three minutes, but it is uncertain if they were faster or slower than Haller. Nevertheless, Walsall’s Conor Wilkinson had a memorable match on 1 January this year, as the team drew 3-3 with Newport. Here are the details:
52 minutes: Entered as a substitute.
In just 53 minutes, a goal was made with the first touch.
The own goal was scored after 56 minutes.
90+5min: Scored equaliser
In November 2015, Troy Deeney went from being praised to being criticized within a span of three minutes. He scored a goal for Watford, equalizing against Manchester United in the 87th minute, but then made a mistake and scored an own goal in the 90th minute. We also have to give credit to Tammy Abraham who scored three goals for Chelsea and then unfortunately scored an own goal just 14 minutes later in their 5-2 victory over Wolves in 2019.
2023 update: In a match between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, Son Heung-min scored for both teams within 137 seconds, resulting in a 3-3 draw.
Can you help?
Tom Wright wonders if Shukura’s recent three 9-0 losses mark a record in the Georgian top league after a challenging season.
Liam Hughes asks, “While watching The Big Match Revisited, I observed that Brighton’s goalkeeper Graham Moseley did not wear gloves. Despite this, it did not improve his performance. It seems quite late, September 1980, for a goalkeeper to not wear gloves. Who was the most recent No 1 to consistently go without them?”
Tom Aldous wonders if the upcoming match between Bristol Rovers and Shrewsbury, scheduled for April 1st, 2024, will be the first time in League One history that both managers share the same name, as Bristol Rovers have recently hired Matt Taylor as their new manager, making him the second League One manager with that name after the one at Shrewsbury.
Paul Vickers inquires if Manchester United has achieved the unique feat of being the top scorers with 12 goals in five games, yet currently occupying the bottom spot in their Champions League group. Additionally, he wonders if any team has accomplished a similar achievement in a major tournament or over an entire league season.
“Jim from Edinburgh wonders if there are any professional footballers who are fifth-generation, as Jack Hinshelwood, who comes from a family of professional footballers, has recently joined the Brighton first team.”
“Over the previous weekend, Lecce’s goalie, the wonderfully named Wladimiro Falcone, joined the attack for a corner and was awarded a penalty after being fouled by Bologna’s Ricardo Calafiori. The only similar incident I can recall is when Paul Robinson was kicked in the face while in the opposing team’s penalty box. Kári Tulinius ponders, “Can you think of any other goalkeepers who have drawn penalties?”
Danny Payne asks if any soccer players have ever won the UK Snooker Championship with a 30-year gap between their first and most recent win, similar to Ronnie O’Sullivan’s accomplishment. Additionally, he inquires if any players have the unique achievement of being both the oldest and youngest winners of any titles or awards.
Jesse Pajwani points out that Chelsea’s captain has been red-carded in back-to-back matches (Reece James, Conor Gallagher). Can you recall the most recent occurrence of this and the record for the longest streak of captains receiving red cards for one club? Extra credit if the captains vary each time!
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Source: theguardian.com
