Manchester City are champions, Tottenham Hotspur grabbed the final Champions League spot and Mohamed Salah and Son Heung-min share the golden boot trophy.
The main prizes have now been handed out, but take a look under the bonnet and there are plenty of alternative awards to be handed out to players and teams. Some of them are insightful, some of them are utterly pointless. All of them are fun.
Here we go…
The alternative league table
Across a season, each team often finishes in the league position they deserve. However, even after 38 games, there can be teams who have been a little lucky and others who feel hard done by.
To combat this, we can look at a team’s expected goal (xG) difference — ie, the difference between xG for and against. This is interesting because xG can offer a clearer prediction of a team’s future performances than points or goals themselves. Granted, we are now at the end of the season so we don’t need to predict the future, but we can still glean who might have performed better or worse than their league position suggests.
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Manchester City remain at the top and Norwich City are still the bottom, but Crystal Palace scoop the award for taking the biggest leap up the table, with six places between their xG difference ranking and their actual league position. This is largely driven by their defensive displays, in which their xG conceded was the fifth-best in the division.
Elsewhere, Wolves can count themselves lucky not to be further down the table, if not for a huge defensive overperformance. Per StatsBomb via FBref, no team across Europe’s top five leagues have overperformed more defensively when comparing their goals conceded versus expected goals conceded.
They largely have goalkeeper Jose Sa to thank for their top-half finish — more on that later.
Liverpool the biggest improver this season
The next awards go to the teams who have shifted their points haul the most between this season and last season.
Among the 17 teams to have played across the past two seasons, Liverpool have shown the biggest improvement of any side this season — perhaps unsurprising given their anomalous campaign last year that was ravaged by injuries. Jurgen Klopp’s men are 23 points better off this year, having pushed Manchester City to the final day and finished with their third-highest points tally in the Premier League era.
At the other end of the scale, Leeds United have the unwanted tag of the largest drop-off this season, being 21 points worse off than their 2020-21 campaign. Leeds fans will hardly care, of course, having secured their Premier League status on the final day.
So come and collect your awards — Liverpool as “most improved team”, and Leeds as, well, the opposite.
How tight has the table been?
Maybe this is an award for the league as a whole, but this season has seen different pinch points in the table compared with the last campaign.
Liverpool pushed Man City to the final day and the relegation battle gripped us until the 38th round, with Burnley dropping down to the Championship with Norwich City and Watford.
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It was largely plain sailing in the hunt for European spots, with the only genuine fight being the one for fourth spot between north London rivals Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. Where last season essentially saw 10 teams fighting for Europe, the largest cluster this season has been for a place in the top half, where four points have separated eighth and 12th.
Premier League, you can pick up the award — this season has been a truly memorable one.
The set-piece kings
We have to be careful not to hand out too many plaudits to Manchester City but it is difficult to ignore just how dominant Pep Guardiola’s side have been in all facets of the game.
As The Athletic explained, City can blow teams away with breathtaking possession football, but they also have a steeliness about them from corners and free kicks that has been key in those tighter games. No one has a better record from set pieces than City, with 22 goals comfortably their highest tally since Guardiola arrived in Manchester.
A word must also go to Brentford, who have found an edge in their set-up from corners and long throw-ins, and Thomas Frank’s side are the joint-third-highest scorers from set pieces.
Everton had the leakiest defence from set pieces, pipping Leicester City to the post by conceding three from set pieces on the final day against Arsenal. It has been a constant theme of Everton’s season without the commanding presence of Yerry Mina in the starting line-up regularly, as the 27-year-old has struggled with injuries all campaign. With Premier League football secured in the penultimate round of fixtures, this will surely be something for Frank Lampard to address over the summer.
Meanwhile, City’s strength at set plays extends to the defensive side of their game; they conceded only once from a set piece — away to Aston Villa for those interested.
“DON’T SHOOOOOOT”
The next award looks at the shooting style of each side in the league — namely what share of shots is being taken outside of the penalty area.
The overall trend in the Premier League has shown that the share of total shots outside of the box has steadily declined in recent years, in exchange for higher quality chances created.
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This season, Norwich City are the lowest scorers in the league and it’s understandable why. As much as 45 per cent of their total shots were outside the penalty area — in case anyone needs it clarified, that’s not what you want. Chief offenders were Milot Rashica and Pierre Lees-Melou, who both shot 27 times from outside the area (scoring once each).
At the other end of the scale, Crystal Palace and Brentford have the lowest share of shots from distance, as they look to work the ball into higher-value areas, most often through Wilfred Zaha and Ivan Toney.
Ultimately, low-volume and low-quality shooting is a dangerous combination when looking to attack.
Sorry, Norwich.
Who had the highest number of goalscorers?
This is an interesting one. The Premier League side with the highest number of individual goalscorers is… Newcastle United.
Surprised? It might not have been the first team you would have thought of, but there is a slight caveat to this stat. Including the goals scored by January signings Dan Burn and Matt Targett, Newcastle’s tally shows 19 different players who have scored in the Premier League this season. That caveat is that those goals by Burn and Targett were actually for Brighton and Aston Villa…
Nevertheless, Eddie Howe’s side have still shared the goalscoring burden across the whole squad. Despite his long spells out with injury, Callum Wilson is Newcastle’s highest scorer in the Premier League with eight goals, meaning his team-mates have had to chip in with a goal or two along the way.
No fewer than seven Newcastle players have scored once to help their team to an 11th-placed finish.
At the other end, it is hardly surprising that relegated Watford and Norwich did not spread their goalscoring across the team. Watford did have players who displayed attacking threat, with Emmanuel Dennis, Josh King, Ismaila Sarr and Cucho Hernandez scoring five or more.
For Norwich, the reliance on Teemu Pukki was too much and the 32-year-old was the only player in the squad to score more than two goals all season — the less said about that, the better.
Sa the star
While Ederson and Alisson shared the golden glove award with 20 clean sheets each, this is a classic award in the football analytics sphere — the best shot-stopping performance.
This can be calculated using the “goals prevented” metric, which compares how many goals a goalkeeper actually conceded against the number they were expected to. This is ideal for measuring the quality of saves produced, given the chances that a goalkeeper has faced. The higher the goals prevented number, the better the shot-stopping performance.
It will surprise very few people to know that Wolves’ Jose Sa gets his safe hands on this award, having prevented just shy of nine goals more than expected given the quality of shots faced.
Even adjusting for the volume of shots Sa has faced, his goals prevented rate still shows that he would have been expected to let in 1.3 goals for every goal that he has actually conceded — better than any other goalkeeper in the league.
Wolves have Sa to thank for a lot of their favourable results this season, but as we know, a goalkeeper’s performances can fluctuate across a longer period — meaning the Wolves defence should not make a habit of relying on their shot-stopper to bail them out to the same degree next season.
For now, Sa can collect his award — we know he won’t drop it.
Who most overperformed their xG?
Another classic. As always, a season’s worth of data still isn’t a huge sample size, but enough to show who has performed above or below expectation in front of goal this season.
The man who has the largest discrepancy between his goals and xG is Kevin De Bruyne — scoring 8.7 more goals than the quality of chances he found himself in.
De Bruyne has enjoyed the most prolific season of his career with a 15-goal haul and has been instrumental in helping City to their back-to-back Premier League titles.
Behind him is Son, who continues to defy the xG gods by scoring above expectation by seven goals for the second season running. Son picked up the first golden boot of his career, sharing the title with Mohamed Salah with 23 goals for the season.
Who most underperformed their xG?
At the other end of the list, we have the unwanted award for the largest discrepancy below expectation in front of goal. This year, that goes to Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo, who has scored 5.8 goals fewer than the quality of chances he found himself in.
It is worth noting the fine margins that Mbeumo has experienced this campaign. No Premier League player has hit the post more than the 22-year-old (six), so pure statistical variance would suggest that he would be more likely to find the back of the net if he continues to get into the same positions next season.
A final quick note on one other player on the list — last season’s golden boot winner, Harry Kane, who has underperformed his non-penalty xG for the first time since becoming a regular in a Spurs shirt. He has scored four goals fewer than the quality of chances he found himself in. No need to panic, Harry, but a quirk that is worthy of flagging.
Dribbling machine
Another award heading to the north east, with Newcastle’s Allan Saint-Maximin scooping the title for most frequent dribbler in the Premier League. No player has attempted more take-ons on average than Saint-Maximin’s 7.6 per 90 minutes.
For Saint-Maximin, his relentless dribbling has also come with more goal involvements this season — his return of five goals and five assists is his highest tally since joining Newcastle.
A particularly cheeky way to beat your man is the crowd-pleasing nutmeg.
One of the most fun statistics to record, but who has completed the most? Top of the pile for the raw number of nutmegs this season is Watford’s Emmanuel Dennis, whose 21 are comfortably the highest of any player this season.
Watford also lead the team nutmeg table with 66 — ahead of Wolves on 49 and Manchester United on 39. The season might not have ended the way that Watford fans planned, but at least they can say that they went down with a bit of flair.
‘Have a word, ref’
True to their aggressive, front-foot style under Marcelo Bielsa and Jesse Marsch, Leeds United lead the way for the total number of fouls committed this season.
Not only that, but their tally of 103 yellow cards is the highest in a single Premier League season per Opta — the first side to reach 100 cautions in a single campaign.
The “cleanest” team? That title goes to Manchester City, who have only picked up 43 yellow cards all campaign.
Of course, for a team who are as possession-dominant as City, there is little need to go chasing the ball, but there might be a little more nuance to City’s intelligent tactical fouling that could be worthy of further investigation for us data folk. Stay tuned for that one.
Where do teams create their chances from?
For opposition analysts, it’s always important to know where the threat is most likely to come from before a match day. Summarising the season as a whole, we can map out where each team’s chances have come from across the attacking half of the pitch to see which third was their most creative.
Aston Villa win the award for the highest share of chances coming from the left third of the pitch. This is likely to have been turbo-boosted by the January arrivals of Lucas Digne and Phillipe Coutinho, who boast the second- and third-highest chances created per 90 in the Villa squad this season behind Emi Buendia.
As The Athletic has analysed this season, Arsenal have the highest proportion of chances created in the central third.
Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe have combined brilliantly to change the location of their chance creation through the middle of the pitch — 42 per cent this year compared with 33 per cent last season.
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On the right third of the pitch, Wolves just edge it with 39 per cent of their chances created on that side — evidenced neatly by their goal against Liverpool on the final day.
Awards for two West Midlands sides, via London.
Who has made the fewest changes?
The penultimate award goes to the manager who has kept the most settled squad in the league this season. With the high physical demands in the Premier League, keeping an unchanged line-up can be a difficult task, but the man who has managed it most often is… David Moyes.
Even with their brave exploits in the Europa League, Moyes has looked to work with a small squad of players that he can trust to do the job, and has done so to great effect as they secured their spot in next season’s Europa Conference League after a seventh-place finish.
At the other end, a fun quirk of the season is that Thomas Tuchel is the only manager in the league to not name an unchanged line-up in the Premier League. A total of 129 changes were made to the Chelsea starting XI as they progressed to they secured a third-place spot and went into the latter stages of three cup competitions. Whether it created unpredictability for the opposition or inconsistency within the team, Tuchel’s players were often left on their toes.
Leeds lead the way for running intensity
On the topic of the physical demands of the league, it’s worth looking at which sides have put in those hard yards to play with a high intensity across each game.
To do this, we can use data from SkillCorner to look at each sides’ average sprints made per player within a game, alongside the average sprinting distance a player makes per game.
Perhaps another unsurprising one, but it still remains staggering to see the intensity of Leeds’ players in every match. Not only do they average the highest sprint count per player, but the distance that each player sprints within the game is also top of the pile.
Leeds have evolved their approach under Jesse Marsch but their principles will continue to be based on the intensity of their play, on and off the ball.
If you can muster the energy, Leeds, please come and collect the final award on the list.
