2 February MW 22
QUICK OFF THE MARK
On Tuesday night two of the fastest goals scored in the Premier League followed one another. Luton’s Elijah Adebayo set the ball rolling at Kenilworth Road within 18 seconds and Ben Brereton-Diaz wasn’t too far behind with the opener for Sheffield United at Selhurst Park that was timed at 20 seconds.
But neither of these quick-fire strikes are even in the top 10 fastest Premier League goals and in fact they only come in second and third this season, lagging behind Jay Rodriguez’s 15 second goal in Burnley’s win over Sheffield United in December. This wasn’t Rodriguez’s quickest goal as 10 years ago he scored for Southampton against Chelsea in just under 14 seconds.
The remarkable thing about this season’s fastest three goals is that they have been scored by the trio of promoted clubs who, bar Luton’s recent revival, have been immersed in the relegation zone.
GOAL RUSH
Despite Fulham and Everton carving out the eighth goalless draw of the season there was another healthy goal haul from the midweek matches with 39 amassed in the remaining nine fixtures and seven of those games featured at least four goals. This season’s goals per game ratio is rattling along at 3.14, still way ahead of the record of 2.85 that was set last season.
KNOCK ON WOOD
In Liverpool’s 4-1 thrashing of Chelsea, the Blues were 2-0 down after 45 minutes, thereby losing their record of being the only club to not be behind at half-time. It could have been even worse for Chelsea if Darwin Nunez had not hit the post with his penalty, which was one of four strikes against the woodwork by the always entertaining Uruguyan.
In so doing Nunez became the first player in the last 20 years (when data was first collected) to hit either post and/or crossbar more than three times in one match. From now on surely he should be called ‘Nearly’ Nunez.
The Football Mine 