GOAL crazy! Final weekends of a Premier League season are usually accompanied by all manner of peculiar traits.
Typically, at least one side is on the receiving end of a serious thumping, and there is no rhyme or reason as to who that side might be.
Last time out it was Wolves. The time before that, Everton. In the last five seasons there has been a 5-0 mauling on the final Sunday and we don’t have to go much further back to recall Spurs walloping Hull 7-1 away. Prior to that there was Liverpool coming unstuck in the Potteries to the tune of six goals to one.
Moreover, a campaign’s curtain call has a habit of throwing up some distinctly strange results.
Last May, Liverpool played out a 4-4 draw at relegated Southampton. In 2019, Crystal Palace beat Bournemouth 5-3. The season before that, Spurs and Leicester bid their fans into the summer with a nine-goal thriller.
It is not unknown for concluding weekends to go all Boxing Day, 1963.
And this naturally enough is reflected in the sheer number of goals scored. Across the past decade, final weekends have produced 3.3 goals per game. This exceeds this season’s overall average of 3.2 per game, which incidentally is a record high for the Premier League.
Delve some more and other nuggets emerge, stats that may be pertinent to what awaits us on Sunday.
In the last ten years – amounting to 100 games – only 15 last-day encounters have ended all-square. Draws tends to happen around 25% of the time as a rule.
Notably too, there have been only two goalless stalemates. Again, this is substantially down on the norm.
Elsewhere, the recent past doesn’t bode well for Sheffield United as they sign off for the Championship. Of the last ten teams completing their season when bottom of the league only one has defiantly exited with a win. Five of the ten lost by a 4+ margin.
Lastly, there is another pattern that is hard to ignore and this one is directly related to a title race that many have oddly given up on, as if West Ham will definitely be vanquished at the Etihad and not very probably.
It is that Arsenal never lose on the final day of the season.
Okay, never is an exaggeration, but they haven’t since 2005 and it’s worth noting that this weekend’s opponents Everton travelled to the Emirates on the last day in 2022 and were easily dismantled 5-1. Will history repeat itself? Certainly their head-to-head record suggests so, the Toffees beating the Gunners only once away since 1996.
Martin Odegaard bagged the fifth that afternoon and two years on the brilliant Norwegian is still being impactful, creating 2.7 chances per 90 in 2023/24. As for in-form players it’s hard to look past Kai Havertz, the German accruing 14 goal involvements in his last 13 league outings.
At the back meanwhile, Mikel Arteta’s men remain stingy to the point of being impenetrable. They’ve kept clean sheets in 64% of their league fixtures in 2024.
If the Gunners were heading into this weekend two points clear instead of two behind then, from a psychological standpoint, a different conversation might be had here. But doing the chasing alleviates the pressure. The same goes for having their fate largely taken out of their hands.
Which guides us 200 miles north to the Etihad, and a fixture everyone seems to be regarding as a straightforward coronation. Certainly, the Sky commentary team were guilty of this on Tuesday evening, forgetting that Manchester City still had one more team to better.
Are they unaware of what necessitated Sergio Aguero’s last-gasp world-wobbler in 2012? Did it slip their mind that two years ago Aston Villa were a brace up 75 minutes deep?
Sure, in 2014 City hosted the Hammers on the final day, needing a win to fend off Liverpool, and they did so in fairly comfortably fashion. But there have been multiple final-day dramatics, as the old City re-emerges at the least welcomed time, and we can include Brighton taking the lead in 2019 in that.
For David Moyes’ last game in charge his players will not be content merely playing the role of sacrificial lambs. Moreover, all of the pressure is on their superior opponents, and that can be capitalised on.
At the other end of the table, regrettably Luton are down, a goal difference deficit of 12 an impossible tally to overturn barring a miracle of miracles.
That’s not to suggest however that the Hatters will simply accept their fate. Instead they will fight tooth and nail for a result on Sunday, as they have done all season long.
Rob Edwards’ side will be hell-bent on proving a point that has already been made many times over.
In this regard, Fulham are the perfect opponents. They’ve won only one in eight and their race is run and it matters too of course that Luton have only failed to get on the score-sheet once in their last 25 outings.
In recent weeks, the hosts have converted early in games but here let’s revert to type. Because from August to December a remarkable 84% of their goals came beyond the 65th minute.
Old habits can die hard.
STE’S TREBLE
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It’s the final countdown as Super Sunday caps a blockbuster weekend of sport, with Man City and Arsenal both vying for the title! Only one can win, but who’ll be crowned Champions of England?
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