There are two numbers everyone will remember from the 2022-23 Premier League season: 36 and three -- Erling Haaland's record-breaking number of goals and Manchester City's record-matching number of consecutive Premier League titles.
But why don't we go a little deeper than that? With 38 more matches in the books, we know who won, who's going to the Champions League, and who's going to the Championship. We also know who conceded the most expected goals per shot since the World Cup and who garnered the most points per millions of dollars spent.
So here's one (or more) stats that sum up each team's season, and what might come next.
Manchester City: 598
The history of Pep Guardiola's managerial career is a struggle against control.
First, at Barcelona, it was simply a question of how much control. His teams in Spain pushed possession levels beyond anything anyone had ever seen before in the modern game. Then, at Bayern Munich, it became a question of how to define control -- the rest of the world started to realize they couldn't have the ball against a Pep team, so they focused on exploiting the moments when the ball was up for grabs, whether that was by pressing to immediately win possession back or by quickly counterattacking into the space behind his high-positioned defenders. Enter: inverted fullbacks.
And now, at Manchester City this season, Guardiola has questioned the idea of control all together. At least, when compared to every other team he has ever coached.
