Premier League MD22: Lucky winners and unlucky losers

The title race is starting to take shape after 22 games, although the Premier League continues to provide plenty of twists and turns.

Liverpool picked up a dramatic win over Brentford to extend their lead at the top to six points, helped by Arsenal's points loss in a draw against Aston Villa later on Saturday.

Nottingham Forest held on to avoid a shock result against Southampton, with their 3-2 win on Sunday moving them level on points with Mikel Arteta's side.

At the bottom, Everton recorded their first win under David Moyes by beating Tottenham, while Manchester United's recent revival came to a halt with a defeat to Brighton.

Meanwhile, pressure mounted on Ipswich Town, who were beaten 6-0 by Manchester City, prompting Pep Guardiola to claim his side were “back” while the Tractor Boys remained in the relegation zone.

13 – Today marks the 13th time that Manchester City have scored more than six goals in a Premier League match under Pep Guardiola, as many times as Arsène Wenger's Arsenal have done so, with only Alex Ferguson's Manchester United (14) scoring more than once scored six times in the competition. competition. Cricket. pic.twitter.com/8s7ytIKJyT

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) January 19, 2025

But which teams were lucky enough to get the points, and who can consider themselves unlucky? Here we use Opta data to find out.

Lucky winners: Liverpool

There had been a lot of talk about Liverpool's form in 2025 ahead of their match against Brentford after back-to-back Premier League draws and the loss of the EFL Cup semi-final first leg to Tottenham.

And for much of their match against Brentford, it looked like those conversations would continue, at least until the 91st minute.

Darwin Nunez came off the bench in the 65th minute but ensured the Reds would go back to Merseyside with three points as he scored twice in stoppage time to take a 2–0 win and break Brentford hearts.

Based on the statistics, it might not seem like Liverpool should be classified as 'lucky'. They hit 37 shots and scored 3.43 expected goals (xG) – more than any other team this weekend – compared to Brentford's 0.72, but the match was much more exciting than the results suggest.

Liverpool's shot count is the highest ever in a Premier League match (since 2003–04), and they did so against Everton in April 2016. However, they failed to score with any of their first 35 shots in the game before Nunez was late. clamp.

Brentford defended steadfastly and caused their own problems at the other end but could not sustain another big result after fighting back against Manchester City last Tuesday.

They say that champions always find a way to win, and Liverpool certainly kept their title bid on track with their victory at the Gtech Community Stadium.

Lucky winners: Aston Villa

Aston Villa didn't win, but they did deal Arsenal a second blow in the title race in recent memory as they came from behind to earn a 2-2 draw at the Emirates.

The Villans rallied in the second half, with two goals in eight minutes from Youri Tielemans, who also hit the post moments later, and Ollie Watkins to deny Arsenal all three points.

In fact, they avoided defeat in an away Premier League match where they trailed by two or more goals for the first time since November 2013 (2-2 against West Brom), ending a run of 52 consecutive defeats .

However, Villa were poor in the first half, scoring just three shots (one on target) worth 0.12 xG. Their improvement in the second half was clearly the deciding factor as they created better chances (0.92 xG) and scored with two of their five attempts.

They dug in late and finished with fewer possessions (34%), touches in the opponent's box (14 to Arsenal's 37) and final third entries (26 to 82), but they don't care because they remained a short distance from the top. four with a valuable point against Unai Emery's old team.

Unlucky losers: Arsenal

I suppose it goes without saying that if Villa were the lucky winners (despite the score), Arsenal would be in the opposite category.

And there are fans who will feel like they left the Emirates with a defeat on Saturday after Kai Havertz saw what he thought was the winning goal awarded for a (albeit accidental) handball in the build-up.

The Gunners created 1.33 xG throughout the match, surpassing Villa's 1.04, and had 18 attempts, six of which were on target as they tried to find a way past former goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez.

But as was the case earlier this season, they were unable to make their dominance count and have dropped twelve points from the winning position in the Premier League this season, the most since 2019/20 (21).

A shot conversion rate of 11.11% is perhaps the most damning statistic for Arteta's side, who now face an even tougher test to catch Liverpool, who still have a game in hand.

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