Tuesday 15 April 2003
Spurs 8th in the instant win league
But Man Utd top the 10-year league for last minute goals
It is now official! Manchester United is the luckiest team in the Premiership, with the most late goals scored in matches over the past 10 years. New research from The National Lottery® confirms every football fan's suspicion - that you can't rule United out of a game until the final whistle has blown.
While Manchester United tops the ten-year league for instant wins, Spurs come in at 8th place with Sheringham having scored seven from a total of 49 last minute winners. This season in the Premiership, 14% of Spur's goals have been scored in the last five minutes of a game.
The research found that Alan Shearer is the king of late goals, scoring 20 last gasp scores in the ten years of the Premiership. Arsenal legend and presenter of BBC ONE's The National Lottery Wright Ticket, Ian Wright is the second luckiest player, having scored 13 goals in the last minutes of a game.
So will we see the Premiership won in an instant when Man Utd play Arsenal at Highbury on Wednesday? If the statistics are anything to go by, Manchester United could win in the last five minutes of the game with a Solskjaer goal!
Top late goal scoring teams from past 10 Premiership seasons:
· Manchester Utd 74 goals
· Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool 70 goals each
· Leeds 60 goals
· Newcastle 59 goals
· Southampton 55 goals
· Tottenham Hotspur 49 goals
· West Ham 42 goals
· Everton 40 goals
· Aston Villa 35 goals
· Blackburn Rovers 34 goals
· Sheffield Wednesday 32 goals
Top 10 late goal scoring teams from this season:
· Arsenal, Bolton , Liverpool , Manchester Utd , Newcastle 8 goals
· Manchester City 7 goals
· Chelsea , Tottenham Hotspur 6 goals
· Birmingham City , Charlton, Southampton 5 goals
· Everton , West Bromwich Albion , West Ham 4 goals
· Blackburn Rovers, Fulham 3 goals
· Aston Villa , Leeds, Middlesborough 2 goals
· Sunderland 0 goals
Whether teams win or lose this weekend, football fans can also experience the exhilaration of scooping a big prize in an instant by winning up to £10,000 on the new Instant Win Games at www.national-lottery.co.uk
The research also showed that:
- 9% of Premiership goals over the past ten years have been scored in the last five minutes of a game
- The most late goals have been scored in the 2001/2002 season with 118, Chelsea contributed the highest amount with 13 (20% of their total goals for the season)
- Bolton have the highest percentage of goals scored at the end of game in one season, 24% of their goals this season have been scored in the final five minutes
- 1995/1996 had the least amount of goals in the last five minutes with only 65, accounting for just 7% of the total goals across the season
· Check the current team appearances, cards and scorers in all competitions
