A Premier League season like no other: From Vardy to de Bruyne, a look at who topped the charts

Marked with an asterisk or otherwise, the 2019-’20 season of football (or sport, for that matter) will go down as one of the most bizarre in history. And the Premier League in England is no different.

Started on August 9, 2019 – fittingly, in hindsight, with the eventual champions Liverpool beating the eventual last-placed finishers Norwich 4-1 – the longest Premier League season came to a close on July 27, 2020.

Liverpool were crowned champions last month but there was much to play for in the final 90 minutes of a campaign that started on August 9 last year and was interrupted by a three-month coronavirusshutdown.

United finished third after a nervy 2-0 win in a Champions League shootout against Leicester, while Chelsea ended in fourth spot after beating Wolves by the same scoreline at Stamford Bridge.

At the other end of the table, Bournemouth and manager-less Watford followed already-relegated Norwich down to the Championship while Aston Villa fans breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Leicester, in fifth spot, will play in the Europa League next season where they will be joined by Tottenham, who drew 1-1 with Crystal Palace to leapfrog Wolves.

Wolves still have two routes to qualify for European competition next season – either into the Champions League by winning the Europa League next month or into the Europa League if Chelsea beat Arsenal in next week’s FA Cup final.

Here’s how the table looked like at the end of the season:

(Note: Scroll across or swipe right on the tables below to view all columns)

Indeed, football is a team game but a match is won or lost, often, by individual efforts. In the tables below we will look at the various chart-toppers from the Premier League season:

Jamie Vardy won the Premier League Golden Boot for the first time in his career despite a poor end to the season for Leicester City that saw them miss out on the Champions League.

England forward Vardy, 33, became the oldest player to win the award for the league’s top scorer after netting 23 goals, one more than Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Southampton’s Danny Ings.

Vardy drew a blank as the Foxes failed to register the win against Manchester United that they needed to leapfrog Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side into the top four.

Manchester City playmaker Kevin de Bruyne notched up 20 assists for the season and became only the second man in the history of the Premier League to achieve that feat. Thierry Henry also registered the same number of assists in the 2002-’03 season.

Ederson took the Golden Glove award for the most clean sheets after Manchester City’s 5-0 win over relegated Norwich took him to 16 for the season.

He finished one ahead of Burnley stopper Nick Pope, whose team suffered a 2-1 home defeat to Brighton.

Fifteen players played every minute of their teams’ season (which comes to 90*38=3420 minutes on the pitch). That number stood at 12 last season and 10 in the edition before that.

It should come as no surprise that Mohamed Salah topped the charts for most shots taken at goal. Those who play the official Fantasy Premier League would be familiar with that statistic, indeed.

The art of tackling is not celebrated as much as the art of goal-scoring but a good tackle could well be the difference between winning and losing.

And finally, a statistic that no footballer would want to be remembered for. Only three players were at the receiving end of more than one red card during the course of the season.

(All statistics courtesy Premier League)