Revealed: The surprise club that tops the Premier League table over the last calendar year – plus, who has scored the most goals, who has the leakiest defence and which hot head picked up the most bookings?

The time for celebration may be over now, but thankfully there is a long, winding road of Premier League drama ahead of us, a silver lining indeed.

Executives at the top table will either be scratching their heads in confusion or sitting back in their chairs smugly, a small glass of red in their hand. For some, 2024 was a year to celebrate. For others, however, it was one to forget.

New Year’s Eve will not be a wild party night. As soon as the clock strikes midnight, the champagne is put on the shelf and the tactics books return.

But just because the year has been consigned to the dusty annals of history doesn’t mean we can’t take one last in-depth look at how it played out. And what better way to do this than by delving into the statistical details of the league, I ask?

So join us and investigate which teams are at the top of the 2024 rankings and select the best and worst performers from the past 366 days.

As always, there will be plenty of surprises along the way…

Overall 2024 rankings

Liverpool may be the runaway leader this season, but it is Arsenal who have topped the Premier League this calendar year. Mikel Arteta’s side were ruthlessly consistent, beating the Reds thanks to a superior goal difference.

Manchester City occupies third place, while Chelsea occupies fourth place.

In a sign of Newcastle’s revival under Eddie Howe, the Magpies were flying high in fifth place, ahead of Aston Villa in sixth and Bournemouth in seventh.

Struggling Tottenham and Manchester United were ninth and tenth respectively.

The ranking was supported by Southampton, a sure bet to be relegated.

Most goals

Liverpool scored the most league goals in 2024 with 92. Arsenal came second with 89, six ahead of Manchester City. Chelsea, again in fourth place, scored 81.

Newcastle proved deadly in front of goal, scoring 80 goals, while Ange Postecoglou’s delightfully lopsided Spurs side scored 73.

Brentford, who have once again impressed under Thomas Frank, the envy of some of the country’s biggest clubs, have scored 62 points in the last 366 days.

Manchester United finished with 56 to their name after a terrible year.

At the bottom, Southampton scored just 12, with Ipswich ahead of them with 18.

Goals against

This is the category in which no club wants to finish first. However, there had to be a loser and this year it was West Ham, who scored a whopping 79 goals.

Wolves (76), Brentford (66), Aston Villa (65), Tottenham (60), Newcastle (58) and Brighton (57) were also no strangers to taking the ball out of their own net.

Manchester United also conceded 57 goals under Erik ten Hag and Ruben Amorim, perhaps a figure that some believe should have been higher.

At the other end of this particular table, Arsenal put up the worst defense, conceding just 23. Next best was Ipswich with 33, although this is skewed by the fact that the Tractor Boys only made the leap to the top in August. .

Manchester City scored 39 goals, many of which came during their recent poor run.

Shots faced

There are caveats here, of course, but the general consensus is that the more Premier League clubs allow shots against them, the more they will concede.

This proved prophetic for West Ham, who also topped these rankings. In the past 366 days, they had to deal with 661 goal attempts. Brentford’s net was also peppered, the Bees allowing 632 shots, comfortably the second highest total.

Manchester United finished third with 572, a byproduct of Ten Hag’s tactical shortcomings and a lack of confidence that permeated their ranks under Amorim.

Then Wolves allowed 562, closely followed by Newcastle (535), Chelsea (516), Everton (509), Bournemouth (493), Fulham (489) and Aston Villa (485).

Newcomer Ipswich allowed the fewest number of shots (293), while the ‘Big Six’ side with the best record in this regard was Manchester City with 323 shots.

Average ownership

It’s no surprise that Manchester City dominated the ball in 2024, giving them the highest average percentage of possession in the entire top flight.

City finished the year with 64.4 percent, putting them ahead of fellow ball-hoggers Tottenham, who recorded an impressive 61.3 percent.

Liverpool, often a smooth machine in every department, were in third place with 60 percent.

Sheffield United finished bottom in this area with 34.7 percent, while Nottingham Forest and Everton achieved 40.2 percent and 40.5 percent respectively.

Arsenal, who like to keep the ball under Mikel Arteta, recorded 55.9 percent. Manchester United ended the year with 51.5 percent.

Clean sheets

Reflecting the fact that Arsenal conceded the fewest goals, Arsenal also scored the most clean sheets, eighteen in fact. Next was Everton with 14 shutouts.

Manchester City (12) and Liverpool (11) were equally stubborn and Brighton finished fifth with 10 to their name. Newcastle came sixth with exactly the same number.

Both Sheffield United and Burnley failed to keep a single clean sheet, leaving them bottom of this table, while Luton and Leicester took one each.

Manchester United, who were a mess at the back for much of the year, kept nine clean sheets.

Bournemouth, Chelsea and Fulham all finished with eight.

Most goals

We now come to the player-only categories and start with the most prolific marksman in the Premier League. It was a four-way race to finish in first place, but the 2024 winner was none other than Manchester City’s Erling Haaland.

Haaland, famous for his Terminator-like edge in front of goal, scored 27 goals, closely followed by Chelsea talisman Cole Palmer, who scored 26.

Alexander Isak, who quickly attracted a lot of interest from across the continent, took 25th place, while Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah finished the year at 23rd.

Chris Wood, Ollie Watkins and Jean-Philippe Mateta also produced respectable scores, with 18 points each, while Yoane Wissa plundered 17 in 366 days.

Nicolas Jackson finished in ninth place with 16, the same as Matheus Cunha.

Assists

Some of the league’s most creative players led those who loved to score.

Mohamed Salah topped this chart with 16 assists and faced stiff competition from Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka, who registered 13 each.

Manchester City playmaker Kevin De Bruyne finished the year with 12 despite his long-term injury woes, while Son Heung-min recorded 11.

Seven players all scored ten goals, including Bruno Fernandes, Anthony Gordon, Declan Rice, Bruno Guimaraes and Morgan Gibbs-White.

Fulham defender Antonee Robinson also provided 10 assists this year.

Opportunities created

In the same vein, a large number of top players created golden openings, many of which were occupied. Topping this list was Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes, with 99 chances (66 of which were in open play) to his name.

Cole Palmer came second on 97 and Kevin De Bruyne finished third with 84.

Bukayo Saka and Andreas Pereira finished with 83 chances created each and there were also strong figures for Anthony Gordon (78) and Dwight McNeil (75).

The only defender in the top twenty was Liverpool player Andy Robertson (65).

Other notable names to win prizes were Luis Diaz (67), Bernardo Silva (67), Son Heung-min (64), Phil Foden (63), James Maddison (62) and Mohamed Salah (59).

Tackles

One guaranteed way to evoke a roar from the Premier League crowd is a good, banging tackle. Fortunately, there were enough in 2024.

Topping this list was Wolves’ Joao Gomes on 129. Next was Crystal Palace’s Daniel Munoz, on 121, and Alexis Mac Allister on 120.

Other workhorses included Moises Caicedo (115), Tyrick Mitchell (110), Casemiro (101), Emerson (99), Mario Lemina (96) and Idrissa Gueye (95).

This was followed by Antonee Robinson (93), Bruno Guimaraes (91), Diogo Dalot (88), Rayan Ait-Nouri (79), Lewis Cook (79) and James Tarkowski (76).

Honorable mentions went to Destiny Udogie (75) and Ryan Christie (73).

Yellow and red cards

Last year there were also hundreds of bookings, which led to a wave of red cards.

Wolves defender Nelson Semedo took a combined 13 (12 yellow, one red) while Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella was second on the mischievous step (11 yellow, one red).

Joao Gomes (12 yellow), Marcos Senesi (12 yellow), James Tarkowski (12 yellow) and Rodrigo Bentancur (11 yellow) also received too many cards.

A special mention goes to Kalvin Phillips, who was sent off twice in 2024, as were Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes and Southampton captain Jack Stephens.

Another red card followed for Edson Alvarez, who also recorded eight yellow cards.