Big wins for Manchester City are surprisingly scarce in the Premier League

Manchester City have won 19 games in a row in all competitions – 13 in the Premier League, three in the FA Cup, two in the EFL Cup and one in the Champions League. We think of them as a team who thrash opponents, and they can, but usually they do not.

After City beat Arsenal 1-0 in the Premier League last Sunday manager Pep Guardiola said: “It is not always about winning by three or four because that is not possible.”

In just over two months in the Premier League City have won four games by one goal, five games by two goals, two games by three goals, one game by four goals and one game by five goals.

As they won every time their minimum goal difference was +1 – but +1 occurred almost as often as +2, and those occurred much more often than any other. This is not unusual for City, even when they are at their best.

Two and three seasons ago they won the Premier League playing some of the most eye-catching and most effective football ever seen in England. Two-goal wins occurred only slightly more often than one-goal wins, and one-goal wins occurred more than twice as often as the next most common outcome. There were 22 two-goal wins, 19 one-goal wins and only nine three-goal wins.

Looking back at those seasons we think City not winning was rare. It was. They drew or lost in only 12 games. They won by four or more goals in 14 games. So City not winning was rare, but only slightly rarer than winning by four or more goals, which we remember wrongly as a much more regular occurrence.

The three seasons before this one witnessed the three highest points totals in the history of the English top division. Three seasons ago City were crowned champions with 100 points, two seasons ago they topped the table with 98 points and last season Liverpool won the league with 99 points. Those were the three most effective performances in English football.

Liverpool won by one goal more often than they won by two goals. There were 14 one-goal wins and 11 two-goal wins. They drew or lost in six games, and won by three or more goals in seven games. So Liverpool not winning was only a slightly odder occurrence than Liverpool winning by three or more goals.

Champions of England – and their commonest score was a one-goal win. That sounds as though it should be unusual, but it is not.

Before the last three seasons there were 22 other Premier League seasons in which teams played 38 games. Champions won by one goal more often than by any other margin. Two-goal wins were slightly less common than draws. There were 240 one-goal wins, 169 draws and 165 one-goal wins.

So much for the top of the table – what about the bottom? Sheffield United are 20th and last in the Premier League with just 11 points from 25 games. That sounds dreadful, and it is. In most of their games, though, they have lost by a single goal. That has happened 14 times.

And a one-goal defeat was the commonest score for teams who finished bottom of the Premier League, though for them it occurred less regularly. There are 25 completed seasons in which Premier League teams played 38 games. The commonest score for teams who finished last was a one-goal loss. The next most common was a draw.

So for teams who finished top the most regular scores were a one-goal win followed by a draw, and for teams who finished bottom the most regular scores were a one-goal defeat followed by a draw. There is less between those extremes than we imagine.

Tenth is the lowest position in the top half of the table. Eleventh is the highest position in the bottom half of the table. So we can talk of positions ten and 11 as mid-table. Over the past 25 seasons mid-table teams won a game by as many as eight goals and lost a game by as many as nine goals. Newcastle, when they were 11th in 1999-2000, won 8-0 at home to Sheffield Wednesday. Southampton, when they were 11th last season, lost 9-0 at home to Leicester.

But the commonest score for mid-table teams, as you might have anticipated, was a draw. It occurred in 27 per cent of their games. Champions won by a single goal in 28 per cent of their games. And bottom-placed finishers lost by a single-goal in 27 per cent of their games. There is not much difference between those percentages, and there is not all that much difference between the outcomes.

There are upwards of a thousand touches on the ball in a Premier League game. The difference between champions and mid-table most often is one touch. And the difference between mid-table and bottom most often is one touch.

Palace will not always get away with a smash and grab raid

Crystal Palace scored in the last minute of added time on Monday to beat Brighton 2-1. It was Palace’s third shot. After Brighton had taken 25. This sort of thing can happen, but usually it does not.

Brighton and Palace play in the Premier League. Premier League games with 28 shots average nearly three goals. So there was nothing strange about the number of goals at the Amex – just who got them.

Teams who take 25 shots in a game average more than two goals. Teams who take three shots in a game average less than one goal.

Naturally some teams have better players than others. When taking 25 shots some teams will average more goals than others. Brighton have one of the lower shot-conversion ratios in the Premier League. Even for them, though, it will be rare to hit 25 shots, face three and lose 2-1.

There will be pundits who say Palace took their chances and Brighton did not. That is so, but it will not usually be so. Palace do not normally score with two-thirds of their shots, and Brighton do not normally score with only one out of 25 of theirs. Admittedly they took 26 shots in the previous game and did not score at all, but across the two games before they took 25 shots and scored twice.

Today's top sports betting stories

Follow us on Twitter @racingpostsport

Like us on Facebook RacingPostSport