Opta's 19 most brain-tickling pre-match facts of the Premier League weekend

1.Southampton have won their last 2 league trips to Old Trafford, both 1-0. They have never won 3 in a row there in their entire league history. Manchester City are the only side to win 3 consecutive Premier League away games against Manchester United at Old Trafford (between 2011 and 2014).

2. Jose Mourinho has lost 4 of his last 7 home league games as manager, the same number he’d lost in his previous 232 league games on home soil (W190 D38 L4).

3.Manchester City’s only previous Premier League win at the Britannia Stadium against Stoke came in February 2015 (4-1). They have drawn 5 and lost 2 of the other 7 games they’ve played there, amassing just 4 goals.

4.Burnley’s last 9 Premier League games have seen just 7 goals scored, with Sean Dyche’s men scoring twice in the process. By contrast, Liverpool’s last 9 away games in the Premier League have contained 41 goals (4.6 per game on average).

5.Hull have won just 1 of their last 15 league trips to Swansea, a 3-2 win at Vetch Field in April 2004 when the clubs were in the fourth tier. Goals from Danny Allsopp and Ben Burgess (2) won it for the Tigers, who were promoted the same season.

6. Hull made no substitutes on Matchday One, becoming the first team to win a Premier League match without making a substitution since Manchester United against Liverpool in February 2012.

7. Mauricio Pochettino (1.75) has a lower points per game ratio as Tottenham manager in the Premier League than both Tim Sherwood (1.91) and Andre Villas-Boas (1.83).

8. Harry Kane’s next Premier League goal will be his 50th. If he scores against Crystal Palace then he’ll have reached this tally in 88 appearances, the joint-10th quickest alongside Robbie Fowler.

9. Crystal Palace have won just 2 of their 20 Premier League games in 2016 so far (W2 D5 L13).

10.Watford’s 1-0 win over Chelsea in 1999 is the Hornets’ only victory over the Blues in their last 15 meetings in all competitions (D5 L9).

11. Eden Hazard has scored 5 goals in his last 6 Premier League appearances, after failing to find the net in his 29 league appearances before that.

12.Everton's Yannick Bolasie could become the first player since Gaston Ramirez in 2014/15 to play the same opposition in his first two appearances of the season, after facing West Brom in MD1 with Crystal Palace.

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13. Romelu Lukaku hasn't scored or assisted a single goal in any of his last 9 Premier League appearances for Everton, a run stretching back to March 19. It’s the longest goal drought in his Premier League career (9 successive appearances).

14. Since Tony Pulis took charge of his first game at West Brom on January 10, 2015, they've kept 22 clean sheets in the Premier League – a tally that only Arsenal (26), Manchester City (23) and Manchester United (23) can better.

15. Leicester are on a 19-game winless run against Arsenal in the Premier League (D6 L13) and lost both games last season. It's the joint-longest active run in the Premier League along with Newcastle against Manchester City.

16. Leicester and Arsenal, who finished 1st and 2nd last season, both lost their opening matches. The last time the top two from the previous season in the English top flight both lost on the opening day was in 1953/54.

17. The last time the reigning top-flight champions lost their first two league games was in 1981/82 (Aston Villa).

18. Jermain Defoe needs one more goal to become outright 10th in the all-time Premier League goalscoring charts (144 currently). Since he made his league debut for Sunderland on January 17, 2015, he's scored 20 Premier League goals. No other Sunderland player has more than five league goals in this period.

19. West Ham only touched the ball seven times in the opposition box on MD1 (vs Chelsea) – a lower tally than any other Premier League team on the opening weekend.

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Joe Brewin

Joe was the Deputy Editor at FourFourTwo until 2022, having risen through the FFT academy and been on the brand since 2013 in various capacities. 

By weekend and frustrating midweek night he is a Leicester City fan, and in 2020 co-wrote the autobiography of former Foxes winger Matt Piper – subsequently listed for both the Telegraph and William Hill Sports Book of the Year awards.

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