THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION PROUDLY PRESENTS

A STATISTICAL REVIEW OF THE 2009/10 SEASON

It is the world’s most watched league and the most lucrative - attracting the top players from all over the globe. Hard to believe then that the first ball kicked in the Premier League was as relatively recently as 15th August 1992.The 1980s saw a nadir in English football. Sta-diums were crumbling and hooliganism was rife. English teams were banned from Europe fol-lowing the death of 39 fans at Heysel Stadium in Belgium ahead of Liverpool’s European Cup Final against Juventus in 1985. Few of the world’s top players would even contemplate plying their trade in England.

Then in 1989 came Hillsborough and the Taylor report. 96 fans died and over 150 were injured - crushed during the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Lord Justice Taylor recommended a complete overhaul in the way football grounds were run and structured - leading to the introduction of all-seater stadia.

Radical RestructingFaced with the huge cost of implementing the recommendations and growing concern over the inability to attract quality players, there was mounting discontent among the top clubs. As early as 1988 ten clubs had threatened to break away in order to take advantage of higher television revenue.

A radical restructuring was needed if English clubs and the game in general were to develop and flourish.

The Founder Members Agreement was signed on 17th July 1991 establishing the basic principles for the setting up of the Premier

League. The League would have commercial independence from the Football League and FA, leaving it free to organise its own broadcast and sponsorship agreement.

On the 20th February 1992 the first di-vision clubs resigned from the Football League en masse and three months later the Premier League was established as a limited company.

The League decided to take the radical step of assigning television rights to Sky TV. At the time charging fans to watch televised sport was a relatively new concept, but a combination of the quality of football on of-fer and Sky’s marketing strategy saw the value of the Premier League soar. The initial deal was worth £191million over five years. To televise the matches from 2007-2010, Sky and Setanta have paid a staggering £1.7billion.

Shape & Develop Sponsorship has also played an enormous role. In 1993 Carling paid £12million for four years and the competition became known as the FA Carling Premiership. They renewed for another four years paying a 300% increase. In 2001 Barclaycard became the new sponsors for £48million over three years. Barclays took over in 2004 with their renewal price for 2007 coming in at £65.8million for three seasons.

Increased revenue has ensured that English clubs can compete on a global scale in terms of transfer fees and wages - an important factor which has seen some of the best overseas play-ers grace the Barclays Premier League.

In 1992 there were just 11 non-British or Irish footballers in the Premier League, by 2007 this had increased to over 250. Over the years over-seas players have helped shape and develop the British game. Overseas managers, too, have

been eager to work in England, and techniques used by the likes of Arsene Wenger, Ger-rard Houllier and Ruud Gullit have had an enormous impact.

The Premier League was initially composed of 22 clubs but it was always the intention to reduce that number to 20 to promote development and excellence at club and international level. This was achieved at the end of the 1994/95 season when four clubs were relegated and just two promoted.

Burnley won promotion in 2009 to take the total number of clubs to have played in the Premier League to 43. The most successful team in Premier League history is undoubt-edly Manchester United. Sir Alex Fergu-son’s side have won a remarkable 11 titles and have never finished below third since the Premier League was launched in 1992.

This season has been as remarkable from start to finish as the last eighteen seasons. We hope you enjoyed as much as we did. The league goes from strength each year and we want to introduce measures to document it and present it you.

We have teamed up with Opta Sports to bring you this statistical publication. It has been de-veloped during the off season and has now been released to allow you to relive last sea-son in the run up to the new season starting today. The stat counter has now been reset.

From all of us at the Premier League comittee and officials of The Football Association, thank you and more importantly, enjoy the game and the new season ahead!

The total number of tickets sold for Premier League matches during the season.

13,001,616

The percentage of Premier League grounds that were full this season. This is the highest spectator occupancy percentage in Europe.

92.4%

75,316The biggest crowd of the season saw Manchester United beat Wigan 4-0 on the final day of the league.

The Premier League would not have it’s reputation of being the most exciting, atmospheric league in the world without your support. 2009/10 was an-other fantastic season for attendance figures. We would like to thank you for your continued support.

Goals, it’s what we go to the game to see, and the Premier League always delivers. 1,053 goals were scored this season setting a new Premier League record. Chelsea, meanwhile, scored a staggering 103 goals during the season and maintained an impressive +71 goal difference, again setting a new Premier League record.

ChelseaF: 103A: 32GD: +71

Manchester UnitedF: 86A: 28GD: +58

Arsenal F: 83A: 41GD: +42

Manchester City F: 73A: 45GD: +28

Tottenham HotspurF: 67A: 41GD: +26

LiverpoolF: 61A: 35GD: +26

EvertonF: 60A: 49GD: +11

Aston VillaF: 52A: 39GD: +13

SunderlandF: 48A: 56GD: -8

West Ham UnitedF: 47A: 66GD: -19

Bolton WanderersF: 42A: 67GD: -25

BurnleyF: 42A: 82GD: -40

Blackburn RoversF: 41A: 55GD: -14

FulhamF: 39A: 46GD: -7

Birmingham CityF: 38A: 47GD: -9

Wigan AthleticF: 37A: 79GD: -42

Hull CityF: 34A: 75GD: -41

PortsmouthF: 34A: 66GD: -32

Stoke CityF: 34A: 48GD: -14

WolverhamptonWanderersF: 32A: 56GD: -24

Goals ScoredGoals ConceededGoal Difference

1 Chelseac 20 29 452 Manchester Unitedeq 20 27 433 Arsenaleq 19 30 414 Tottenham Hotspureq 20 20 375 Manchester City 19 11 356 Aston Villa 20 11 357 Liverpool 20 12 338 Birmingham City 20 2 329 Fulham 19 5 2710 Sunderland 20 -3 2311 Everton 19 -6 2212 Stoke City 19 -8 2113 Blackburn Rovers 20 -15 2114 Burnleyr 20 -18 2015 Wolverhampton Wanderers 20 -19 1916 Wigan Athletic 19 -23 1917 West Ham United 20 -9 1818 Bolton Wanderers 18 -10 1819 Hull Cityr 20 -22 1820 Portsmouthr 20 -14 14

P GD Pts

Key:- Pos: Position, P: Games Played, GD: Goal Differential, Pts: Points

Half Time League09/10

At the turn of the year Chelsea were topping the league and emerging as potential title winners, stripping the crown from reigning champions Manchester United who had won three back to back titles in previous seasons. Early inidcations also showed notorious under acheivers Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League positions in front of big spending Manchester City.

Meanwhile Bolton Wanderers found themselves in the bottom three with West Ham United escaping on goal difference. Hull City and Portsmouth made up the rest of the relegation candidates.

Top Goal Scorers20

Didier Drogba29 Wayne Rooney26 Darren Bent24 Carlos Tevez23 Frank Lampard22 Jermain De-foe18 Fernando Torres18 Francesc Fabregas15 Emmanuel Adebayor14

Gabriel Agbonlahor13 Louis Saha13 Florent Ma-louda12 Nicolas Anelka11 Andrey Arshavin10 Craig Bellamy10 John Carew10 Carlton Cole10 Cameron Jerome10 Hugo Rodal-lega10

Didier Drogba wins the Golden Boot for the second time with twenty nine goals.

Chelsea2.71 Manches-ter United2.26 Arsenal2.18 Manchester City1.92 Tottenham Hotspur1.76 Liverpool1.61 Everton1.58 Aston Villa1.37 Sun-derland1.26 West Ham United1.24 Bolton Wan-derers1.11 Burnley1.11 Blackburn Rovers1 Fulham1 Birmingham City1 Wigan Athlet-ic0.97 Hull City0.89 Ports-mouth0.89 Stoke City0.89 Wolverhamton Wan-derers0.84

.13Goals Per GameRatios

Red Cards68

Yellow Cards1,235

Sunderland had the worst disciplinary record this season with 82 bookings and 9 sent off

.151 Chelseac 38 27 5 6 103 32 71 862 Manchester Unitedeq 38 27 4 7 86 28 58 853 Arsenaleq 38 23 6 9 83 41 42 754 Tottenham Hotspureq 38 21 7 10 67 41 26 705 Manchester City 38 18 13 7 73 45 28 676 Aston Villa 38 17 13 8 52 39 13 647 Liverpool 38 18 9 11 61 35 26 638 Everton 38 16 13 9 60 49 11 619 Birmingham City 38 13 11 14 38 47 -9 5010 Blackburn Rovers 38 13 11 14 41 55 -14 5011 Stoke City 38 11 14 13 34 48 -14 4712 Fulham 38 12 10 16 39 46 -7 4613 Sunderland 38 11 11 16 48 56 -8 4414 Bolton 38 10 9 19 42 67 -25 3915 Wolverhampton Wanderers 38 9 11 18 32 56 -24 3816 Wigan Athletic 38 9 9 20 37 79 -42 3617 West Ham United 38 8 11 19 47 66 -19 3518 Burnleyr 38 8 6 24 42 82 -40 3019 Hull Cityr 38 6 12 20 34 75 -41 3020 Portsmouthr 38 7 7 24 34 66 -32 19

P W D L F A GD Pts

Key:- Pos: Position, P: Games Played, W: Wins, D: Ties, L: Losses, F: Goals Scored, A: Goals Against, GD: Goal Differential, Pts: Points

Final Standings09/10

After almost eight months and thirty eight games of football this was the most important result. The race for the title went to the final day of the season with Chelsea one point ahead of Manchester United. Chelsea’s 8–0 win over Wigan Athletic was enough to secure their first title since 2006, despite Manchester United’s 4–0 defeat of Stoke City. The title win came in Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti’s first season at the club and he followed this up a week later by securing Chelsea’s first FA Cup and League double with a win over Portsmouth at Wembley. Chelsea striker Didier Drogba won the Golden Boot award as the league’s top goalscorer for the second time.

In February 2010, Portsmouth became the first club to go into administration whilst a member of the Premier League. They were deducted nine points, and two months later they were the first team of the season to be relegated. Hull City and Premier League debutants Burnley were relegated alongside them.

Newcastle, West Bromich Albion and Playoff winners Blackpool have all been promoted to the Premier League after their fine season performances in the Football League Championship.

Javier Mascherano

Gary Caldwell

George Boateng

Abdoulaye Faye

Ricardo Rocha

Michael Turner

Tamir Cohen

Jozy Altidore

Michael Ballack

Craig Bellamy

Juliano Belletti

Fabrice Muamba

Titus Bramble

Michael Brown

Stephen Carr

Lorik Cana

Jamie Carragher

Lee Cattermole

Stiliyan Petrov

Alex Song

211

23

24

25

12

12

17

14

13

15 10

110

18

17

110

10

211

211

211

211

Disciplinary RecordReds/Yellows

Cards change games, and this season has been no different. Liverpool’s Javier Mascherano was the main culprit with two reds and eleven bookings. sixty eight red cards were issued this season, three more than the previous season and fourty three more bookings were issued.

In particular this year referees were instructed to crack down on feigning injury, violent conduct and verbal abuse.

1.625The average number of yellow cards issued per game this season.

0.089The average number of red cards issued per game this season.