Mbappe 28, Messi 0 and Napoli’s record 13: Stats

Another superb weekend of football action before the leagues stop for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Arsenal have increased their lead on top of the Premier League table with a 2-0 win over Wolves. Manchester City suffered a shock 2-1 defeat against Brentford while Chelsea also endured a loss against Newcastle. Other top four contenders — Tottenham (vs Leeds), Manchester United (vs Fulham) and Liverpool (vs Southampton) secured important wins going into the break.

7hJames Olley

1dRob Dawson

2dSid Lowe

2 Related

Napoli remained on top of Serie A with a nervy 3-2 win over Udinese. AC Milan are second after beating Fiorentina 2-1 in stoppage time and Juventus moved to third with an impressive 3-0 win over Lazio. Bayern Munich eased past Schalke 2-0, but Borussia Dortmund once again lost to Gladbach. In Ligue 1, PSG scored five times to beat Auxerre and maintain a five-point lead at the top.

By The Numbers has the best stats from the weekend action:

PREMIER LEAGUE

18y 135d

Alejandro Garnacho, aged 18 and 135 days, became the second youngest Manchester United player to score a stoppage-time game-winning goal in the Premier League. Only Federico Macheda did so at an earlier age — 17 years, 227 days — against Aston Villa during the 2008-09 season.

7

Harry Kane has scored in 7 consecutive Premier League home games. Only Romelu Lukaku and Luis Suárez (8) have scored in more consecutive PL home games than Kane since 2011-12.

600

James Milner made his 600th appearance in the Premier League when he came on as a substitute against Southampton. He is only the fourth player in league history to reach 600+ apps after Gareth Barry (653), Ryan Giggs (632) and Frank Lampard (609).

53

With his two assists in the first-half against Southampton, Liverpool’s Andrew Robertson has equalled Leighton Baines as the defender with the most assists in Premier League history — 53.

5

Arsenal opened up a five-point lead over second place Manchester City in the Premier League. This is Arsenal’s biggest lead at the top of the Premier League table since 13th December 2013. They will also finish at the top of the table during Christmas Day for the first time since 2007-08; but failed to win the title the last five times this happened.

SERIE A

42

Since the start of 2022, no team in Serie A has collected more points at home than AC Milan — 42.

68%

According to FiveThirtyEight’s Soccer Power Index (SPI), Napoli have a 68% chance to win their first Serie A title since 1986-87 (Inter 13%, Milan 12%, Lazio 3%, Juventus 2%).

13

Napoli won 13 of their first 15 Serie A games in a season for the first time in history. Juventus are the only team to have previously done this in the top-flight (in 2018-19, 2013-14, 2005-06 and 1949-50).

BUNDESLIGA

5

In the last 10 Bundesliga seasons, 5 teams have faced Bayern at least 10 times and failed to win a single one: Schalke (17), Werder Bremen (17), Koln (14), Hamburger (10) and Hannover (10).

LIGUE 1

28

Kylian Mbappe scored his first career Ligue 1 goal against Auxerre. He has now scored against 28 of the 30 Ligue 1 teams he has faced (the two being PSG and Lens).

10

PSG beat Auxerre 5-0 on Sunday. This was their 10th win by 5 or more goals in the last five Ligue 1 seasons. The only other teams with double digit 5-goal wins in the Top 5 European leagues during that span are Man City (20) and Bayern Munich (18).

RONALDO MESSI WATCH

0

The 5-0 win over Auxerre equalled PSG’s most goals in a Ligue 1 game where Lionel Messi did not score or assist (also on August 13, 2022 vs Montpellier).

Meanwhile, there are no numbers for Cristiano Ronaldo as he was left out of Manchester United’s squad once more… only to then create the biggest headline of the weekend.

(Stats courtesy: ESPN Stats and Information Group)