This weekend of football action saw a number of records being tumbled as heavyweights like Real Madrid and Manchester United succumbed to defeats in their respective leagues, with Barcelona failing to register a win even after being 2-0 ahead with less than 30 minutes to go in the match. For Arsenal, Mesut Ozil continued his scintillating run of form and added another assist to his name and Petr Cech became the joint highest clean sheet holder in the Premier League.
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Here are the records broken in the English Premier League this weekend:
Arsenal ran out 2-0 winners against a hopeless Aston Villa side who have failed to register a win in their last 15 matches now. Giroud scored the opening goal for the Gunners and Ramsey scored the second goal, which was assisted by Mesut Ozil. This was the German playmaker’s 13th assist this season in the Premier League, five more than any other player in Europe’s top leagues. Ozil has equalled the maximum number of assists which players like Dennis Bergkamp, Juan Mata and Steven Gerrard mustered in a whole season, in just 15 games.
The record for the maximum number of assists in a Premier League season is currently held by Thierry Henry with 20 assists in the 2002-03 season.
Arsenal’s shot-stopper Petr Cech equalled David James’ record for most clean sheets earned by a goalkeeper in the Premier League, with 169 clean sheets in 349 matches.
Manchester United lost 2-1 to newly promoted Bournemouth on Saturday at Dean Court. This was the first time the Cherries have gained promotion to the Premier League, and they defeated both the defending champions and the 20-time English champions in back to back matches. This was also the first instance since 2010 that a Premier League team has defeated Chelsea and Man United in consecutive matches. Everton was the last team to do so.
Everton played out a 1-1 draw with Norwich City, but Romelu Lukaku’s goal scoring form saw no dip as he scored the opening goal for the Toffees. In doing so, he became the first Everton player since 1975 to score in seven consecutive matches in all competitions.
Liverpool held on to a 2-2 draw against West Bromwich Albion at Anfield, which saw Divock Origi score the equaliser late into injury time. Liverpool had 28 shots today which was their highest in Premier League matches since 2013 when they managed 32 shots against West Ham United.
Records broken in the La Liga:
Defending champions Barcelona were forced to play out a 2-2 draw with Deportivo la Coruna even after Rakitic’s goal put them 2-0 ahead in the 62nd minute. The first goal was scored by Lionel Messi from a free-kick. This was the 18th goal scored by Messi from a direct free-kick for the Blaugrana, one less than Ronaldinho. This was also Messi’s fifteenth La Liga goal against Deportivo la Coruna, which is the maximum number of goals scored by any player against the La Liga club.
The one record which the Cules might not like is that the last time Barcelona failed to register a single win in two consecutive fixtures against Deportivo la Coruna was back in 2003.
On the other hand, Real Madrid went down 1-0 to a resolute Villareal side and failed to close the gap between themselves and Barcelona. This was the first instance when Cristiano Ronaldo has failed to score against the Yellow submarine, and the Los Blancos managed just one shot on target in the 90 minutes, which is a new low for them this season.
Records broken in the Bundesliga:
In the Bundesliga, Bayern came out on top against a stubborn Ingolstadt side with the help of goals from Robert Lewandowski and Philipp Lahm. They became the first side in Bundesliga history to remain atop the Bundesliga table before Christmas for five consecutive seasons.
Borussia Dortmund did not disappoint as they came back from 1-0 down to thrash Frankfurt 4-1 at the Westfalenstadion, with the visitors playing most of the match with 10 players. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang assisted the first and scored the second goal for BVB, taking his tally to a total of 18 goals in the Germany’s top flight this term. He leads Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski by three goals, who is the second highest scorer in all of Europe’s top leagues.
