YES, of course there was a penalty in Manchester United’s first ever Premier League game. But it wasn’t awarded to the club who would go on to become the reconstituted division’s first champions in May 1993, instead it went to their opponents on that significant August Saturday, Sheffield United. Brian Deane converted it, meaning he completed any striker’s dream triple on the opening day: the first ever Premier League goal, the first goal scored by a player in a long-sleeved shirt and, later in the game, the first Premier League goal from the penalty spot. Alex Ferguson’s side would not win their first spot kick until September 12, and by then Liverpool had already been awarded two. As we know, 2-0 is rarely a dangerous lead and so it has proved.
Not at any point in Premier League history have Manchester United equalised or gone ahead of Liverpool for penalties awarded. This is one perch that the Merseysiders have been happily gripping on to for nearly 30 years. And yet, as the exclusive research in the tweet below reveals, the last few seasons have seen United slowly close the gap to the point that if they get a spot-kick against West Ham on Sunday, they’ll go level with their arch-rivals on 165. Parity at long last.
Man Utd (164) now one penalty behind Liverpool in PL history. United haven't been level with them since August 1992 & they've never been ahead pic.twitter.com/qmBe3FiSVd
— Duncan Alexander (@oilysailor) March 7, 2021
Penalty awards are not a linear process. They come and go for clubs in spates, often intrinsically connected with a team’s style of play. Liverpool’s record in a single season is 12 in 2013-14, a campaign when they countered like racehorses and had Steven Gerrard threading balls through for the likes of Luis Suarez and Raheem Sterling. For Arsenal it’s 2006-07 when Cesc Fabregas was threading balls through for… well you get the idea. This begs the question: how would a mini audit of each Premier League ever-present club’s penalty history look? Something like this:
Arsenal
The Gunners might have featured in every Premier League season but they didn’t score their first penalty in it until November 1993, 15 months after the competition had begun. Each of the club’s first five penalties (four of them in 1992-93) were missed, the worst start to spot-kick duties by any club in the division’s history. Other than that, Arsenal are a pretty regular club when it comes to 12 yard action. They average 5.2 a season and have had four, five or six actual penalties in 16 different campaigns. Like Goldilocks, not too many, not too few, but just right. Unless you’re an Arsenal fan and want a load more penalties, which is fair enough.
Chelsea
Of all the current ‘big’ clubs in the division, only Manchester City have experienced more ups and downs than Chelsea in the Premier League era and City aren’t an ever-present side having been relegated from the division in both the 1990s and 2000s. Chelsea started the Premier League as a workmanlike team hoping to attract five figure attendances at Stamford Bridge and avoid relegation. The long grind that was 1992-93 saw the Blues classically change managers mid-season from Porterfield to Webb but only get one penalty all season, a feat they repeated in the more glamorous world of 1998-99. And if Jose Mourinho wants more evidence of how good his mid-2000s Chelsea side were, then the fact that they, and he, won back to back titles in 2004-05 and 2005-06 with a combined total of 10 penalties across those two campaigns. Chelsea averaged four penalties per season between 1992-93 and 2008-09 but since then it has shot up to 6.8, with 12 in 2009-10 and 11 in 2012-13. With nine so far this season, a new club record is within sight. Is this a Chelsea trend alone? No, penalties per game have steadily increased per decade but that rule doesn’t apply to everyone, as we’ll see.
Tottenham
The reason this article abandons alphabetical order to jump to Spurs is because they buck the general trend of a steady increase in penalties as time progresses. The first three Premier League campaigns saw Tottenham take 26 spot-kicks, more than they were given in the following 10 seasons combined. They weren’t necessarily converted into goals, as Teddy Sheringham is low-key one of the most ineffective penalty takers in Premier League history, but they were still awarded by early 1990s referees like Gerald Ashby, Roger Dilkes and even Keith Hackett himself. It means that even now, in the glittering Harry Kane 2020s, more than 20% of Tottenham’s Premier League penalties were awarded between August 1992 and May 1995. Not even scientists can explain why.
Everton
From baffled scientists to the School of Science. Everton are probably the least celebrated Premier League ever-presents and their penalty distribution is not hugely exciting, with three seasons where they’ve got only one (most recently 2019-20) and a couple of campaigns where they’ve had, and brace yourself Everton fans, eight in one season. The one thing Everton do well is identify defenders who know how to take a spot kick. David Unsworth scored 19 from 22, Leighton Baines scored 19 from 21 and even Michael Ball scored six from eight.
Liverpool & Manchester United
When Steven Gerrard departed Liverpool in 2015, they had been awarded 15 more Premier League penalties than Manchester United. At that point United had scored fewer Premier League spot-kicks than Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea, and had scored only one more than Newcastle, who had played fewer seasons in the competition. What has happened since then? The simple answer is Manchester United have been awarded a lot of penalties in the last six years. A lot. 35 in the last not-even-quite-three seasons is the biggest rolling concentration of penalties ever seen in the Premier League. The previous best was 29 by Manchester United last season (see a trend?) and by Crystal Palace between 2016-17 and 2018-19 with 28. And here’s the plot twist, because if and when Manchester United draw level with Liverpool for Premier League penalties the two fanbases will be left doing the two spiderman meme at each other, both claiming the other side is the beneficiary of some sort of spot-kick superconspiracy when of course that’s not true. The true penalty kings of the Premier League have been hiding in plain sight all this time and they are Crystal Palace. 70 penalties in 454 Premier League games is 0.154 per match which puts them above Liverpool and United and means they have been awarded more spot-kicks in those 454 matches than Sunderland have in 608. Palace enjoying the spoils while everyone else argues amongst themselves? We’ve seen this plotline before.
