New Year's Day was not only the beginning of the year 2020 and a new decade, but it was also a landmark in the history of the Premier League.
On 1 January it was 10,000 days since the competition played its very first matches, on 15 August 1992.
From Day 1 prior to Matchweek 21's fixtures, there had been 10,705 matches played and 28,418 goals scored.
The team to have been at the top of the Premier League table for the greatest number of days during that time was, not surprisingly, Manchester United.
The 13-time champions were in first position for almost a quarter of the period, leading for 2,335 days, followed by Chelsea (1,519 days) and Arsenal (981), with Manchester City (748) and Liverpool (581) closing in on these totals.
Most days top of the PL
| Club | Days top of PL |
|---|---|
| Manchester United | 2,335 |
| Chelsea | 1,519 |
| Arsenal | 981 |
| Manchester City | 748 |
| Liverpool | 581 |
| Newcastle United | 360 |
| Blackburn Rovers | 238 |
| Aston Villa | 162 |
| Leicester City | |
| Leeds United | 159 |
The day that produced the most goals came in the inaugural season, when the ball hit the back of the net 47 times from the nine matches played on 8 May 1993.
The most goals in a day
On that day Matt Jackson scored his third Premier League goal for Everton. He then spent almost half the 10,000 days waiting to score his fourth goal in the competition. It came for Wigan Athletic on 11 November 2006, 4,935 days later, making it the longest spell between Premier League goals scored by the same player.
Damien Delaney also had to show patience in re-establishing himself as a Premier League defender. Some 4,173 days after playing for Leicester City on 16 March 2002, he reappeared for Crystal Palace on 18 August 2013, the longest wait between appearances by a player in the competition.
As for those players who have experienced just one day out of the 10,000 of Premier League action, of the 4,190 who have featured in total, 295 made one solitary appearance.
