Annus mirabilis or year to forget? How the current 92 league clubs fared in 2023
Treble-winners Manchester City and Hollywood success story Wrexham were the English league’s top-performing teams of 2023, with a less heralded name joining them in the mix.
Here, the PA news agency looks at the calendar-year league table for the 92 current Premier League and EFL clubs.
Annus mirabilis
The table ranks teams by average points per league game in 2023, with ties broken by per-game goal difference.
Pep Guardiola’s City led the way with 2.27 points per game as they went unbeaten at home in all competitions. They won 29 of their 41 Premier League games, drawing six and losing six.
Wrexham, promoted from the National League and thriving in League Two to kick-start high-profile owners Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds’ grand plans for the north Wales club, won 31 of their 47 league games for an average of 2.21ppg.
League One runners-up Ipswich, who finished 2023 in the same spot in the Championship, rank third in the calendar year table at 2.19ppg even after taking just three points from their last four games.
Kieran McKenna’s side join only City with a goal difference better than plus-one per game, scoring 103 and conceding 44 to average +1.26 (+59 in 47 games), while their four defeats are the fewest of any team.
Aston Villa were the only other side to average over two points per game, 2.02, with 26 wins from 42 including a club-record 15 consecutively at home.
Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United, Brighton, Newcastle and Tottenham make it eight Premier League teams among the top 20 in the combined table, joined by Championship pair Ipswich and Leicester, six League One clubs and four from League Two.
Annus horribilis
Forest Green cycled through five managers – including history-making caretaker Hannah Dingley – in a year which saw them take just 0.51ppg, less than a quarter of the leading teams’ averages.
Their 45 league games produced only five wins, 23 points, relegation from League One and starting 2024 in last place in League Two. They were well behind the team ranked 91st, QPR at 0.78ppg.
Reading (0.84) and Rotherham (0.87) were next, with Sutton, Doncaster and Cheltenham also below a point per game.
Four top-flight clubs feature among the 24 “League Two” places in the combined table, most notably Chelsea whose billion-pound transfer spend only produced 12 league wins, 12 draws and 19 losses for an average of 1.12ppg, the 17th-worst record.
Everton (1.15), Nottingham Forest (1.07) and Crystal Palace (1.05) were the others, with West Ham, Burnley, Luton, Brentford and Wolves in the “Championship” places and Fulham, Sheffield United and Bournemouth in “League One”.
Top scorers
Wrexham were pushed all the way in last season’s National League by Notts County, who have been similarly impressive on their EFL return and boast the year’s top scorer in Macaulay Langstaff.
The 26-year-old scored a National League record 42 goals last season and then signed off the year as League Two’s leading scorer this term with 18, finishing 2023 with 39 overall in league action.
While starting the year in non-league football helped his cause, the fact Langstaff outscored Manchester City’s Erling Haaland demonstrates his achievement regardless of the opposition.
Alfie May, with a League One-leading 15 for Charlton following the same for Cheltenham in the 2023 section of last season, was the only other player to hit 30 with Haaland and Wrexham’s Paul Mullin one behind.
Bradford’s Andy Cook completes the top five on 25, with Liverpool star Mohamed Salah joined on 24 by Ipswich’s Conor Chaplin and Langstaff’s strike partner David McGoldrick.