Lionel Messi reached 1000 goal contributions in club football as another rollicking weekend of European football rolled on. Messi's PSG kept their lead atop Ligue 1 at six points (over Lens) as they broke a rare two-game losing streak. Arsenal's chaotic draw at Liverpool saw the Premier League title race blown wide open - Arsenal lead Manchester City by six points, but City have a game in hand (and also a home tie against Arsenal coming up). Below them Newcastle United, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur all won to keep the top-4 race tight.
Over in Spain, Barcelona won and Real Madrid lost, meaning the former's lead over their great rivals atop LaLiga is now a whopping 12 points (Plus Barca have a game in hand). In Italy, Napoli remain comfortable atop Serie A: they lead by 16 points.A Matthijs De Ligt wondergoal, meanwhile, saw Thomas Tuchel's Bayern Munich keep a two point buffer over Borussia Dortmund atop the Bundesliga.
ESPN's By The Numbers has the best stats from the weekend:
PREMIER LEAGUE
1-2-10
Frank Lampard, now interim manager at Chelsea, is 1-2-10 (W-D-L) in the last 13 Prem games. In fact, his last Prem win as a manager was Oct. 22 with Everton.
10 for 2.1
Mohamed Salah had 10 shots with a combined xG of 2.1 vs Arsenal on Sunday. That's more than Arsenal (9 shots, 1.4 xG) and the joint-most shots any player has had on record (from 2003-04) in a Prem game against Arsenal (Andy Carroll, also 10, in April 2016).
11
Roberto Firmino tied Jamie Vardy (11) for third most goals vs Arsenal in the Prem era. The only players with more goals against Arsenal are Harry Kane (14) and Wayne Rooney (12)
19
How's this stat to sum up the chaos on Sunday - Liverpool had 19 shots inside the box against Arsenal. That's the most they have faced in a Prem match since 2003-04 (from when this data is available)
30
Erling Haaland is the 4th player in the Top 5 European Leagues since 1999-2000 to score 30+ goals in his first season with a new club after Luca Toni (Fiorentina), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (PSG), Mohamed Salah (Liverpool). Haaland is the only one from the list to do this under the age of 25.
P.S. Kylian Mbappe did it in his first full season with PSG (33 goals in 2018-19), but he had arrived to the club midway through the season before.
Pep Guardiola on the comparison of Haaland to Messi and Ronaldo �� pic.twitter.com/skY4iHv85k
- ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) April 9, 2023
34
Roy Hodgson has Crystal Palace smiling again - they completed 34 successful dribbles against Leeds United on Sunday: the most by a team in a Prem match on record (since 2003-04). Eberechi Eze had the most, with nine.
68
The draw at Anfield snapped Arsenal's run of 68 straight wins in all competitions in matches where they had led by multiple goals. The last time Arsenal failed to win a game when leading by 2+ goals was....... Oct. 30, 2019, vs Liverpool in a 5-5 draw, also at Anfield.
100 x 100
On the same day, Son Heung-Min became the 34th player with 100 Prem goals and Kevin De Bruyne became the 5th Prem player with 100 assists. While Son is the first Asian to 100 Prem goals, De Bruyne became the fastest to reach 100 assists. He got to the milestone in 237 games, the next closest - Cesc Fabregas - took 293.
LALIGA
1
Samu Chukwueze is the first player with a game-winning LaLiga goal vs Real Madrid at the Bernabeu from outside the box since Villarreal's Pablo Fornals in Jan. 2018. In 2020, Joselu also accomplished the same feat away at Madrid, but at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano while the Bernabeu was being remodelled.
Chukwueze is also the first player with a multi-goal game in LaLiga vs Barcelona or Real Madrid (excluding players from those teams) since Celta's Iago Aspas on Nov. 6, 2021.
1
Real Madrid's loss to Villarreal is their first LaLiga home loss this season (first since March 2022, 4-0 vs Barcelona). This snaps a 17-game unbeaten streak at home in the league.
3
Real Madrid have lost 3 games in which it held a lead for the first time in a season since at least 2010-11. In the previous 3 seasons, it lost just 2 such LaLiga games.
12
Atletico Madrid are now unbeaten in 12 straight LaLiga games: their longest such run since Feb. - July 2020 (16). It is also the longest active unbeaten run by any LaLiga team.
SERIE A
7
Since 2013-14 (his debut in Serie A), only Lionel Messi (10), Neymar (9), Roberto Firmino (8) and Thomas Müller (8) have scored 6+ goals and provided 6+ assists across more seasons than Domenico Berardi (7) in the top-5 European Leagues.
BUNDESLIGA
4
In the game between Mainz and Werder Bremen that ended 2-2, (all) four goals were scored from the 85th minute onwards. The last time this had happened in a Bundesliga match was in January 1980, when Bremen lost 4-6 to TSV 1860 Munchen.
LIGUE 1
1
Sergio Ramos scored his first goal this season in Ligue 1 to make it 2-0 PSG (against OGC Nice). The man who assisted him? Lionel Messi... imagine telling a time-traveller from the 2010s this fact!
MESSI-RONALDO WATCH
Lionel Messi had a goal and assist in PSG's win against Nice. Cristiano Ronaldo had a quiet weekend, with his Al Nassr playing out a goalless draw against 11th place Al Feiha. Al Nassr are now second, three points behind Al Ittihad.
A closer look at Lionel Messi's 1000 club goal contributions �� pic.twitter.com/zF404L9Tjc
- ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) April 8, 2023
30
Lionel Messi scored his 30th career goal with PSG in all competitions. It was his 19th goal this season (14 in Ligue 1) and first since March 4.
1000
With that assist to Ramos, Lionel Messi reached 1,000 career club goal contributions (including all his official games with PSG and Barcelona).
Breaking down the 1000:
Career goals (club): 792
Career assists (club): 298
Goal contributions (club-wise): 938 with Barcelona, 62 with PSG
League goals: 494 (in comparison, Ronaldo has 495 in Europe's top 5 Leagues)
(Stats courtesy: ESPN Stats and Information Group)