There are lots of statistics in football, so when you’re looking at them all the time, it takes quite a lot for one to stand out.

However, one appeared on The Athletic’s desk recently that caught our attention. According to Opta, in Sunderland’s first game of the season, a 2-1 win against Brentford, Eliezer Mayenda played 63 minutes and completed only one pass. One single completed pass, in more than an hour of football. That takes some doing. It makes him the third man to play for over 60 minutes in a Premier League game and complete a single pass, since Opta started recording these statistics in 2003: the others were Hameur Bouazza for Watford against Wigan Athletic in 2006-07, and Brennan Johnson for Nottingham Forest against Brighton & Hove Albion in 2022-23.

Johnson was on the pitch for 86 minutes in that game, an extraordinary amount of time to complete only one pass, but he was given the most thankless of tasks, playing up front on his own as Forest parked the bus, removed the wheels and threw the keys into the sea. He only touched the ball 10 times in a 0-0 draw. Bouazza’s is arguably even more remarkable: he played 84 minutes of that 1-1 draw against Wigan, but in midfield, where typically the passes happen, and he scored.

But that’s by-the-by. The stat made us think: what other fairly niche things have only been done once in the Premier League and what are the most extreme examples of them?

We’re not talking about stuff like winning the Premier League title once — 172 have done that, from Alan Shearer to Alexander Buttner. We’re not even talking playing only one game — at the time of writing, that tally is 385, a list that includes former United States men’s national team stalwart Maurice Edu, football folklore entrant Ali Dia and Cafu… but not that one — although that will change week-by-week as this season progresses.

No, we’re digging deeper than that. For example, on that list of 385 single gamers are 65 players who have officially played just one minute in the Premier League. In reality, that might not actually be one minute — these are players whose only action has come after being brought off the bench on 89 minutes or later, so it doesn’t include any stoppage time.

But as far as we can tell, the player who has enjoyed the shortest Premier League career is goalkeeper Nick Culkin, who came on for an estimated two seconds of Manchester United’s 2-1 win against Arsenal in August 1999. That’s the shortest career: perhaps one day someone will be on the pitch for a single second, but until then, the title is Culkin’s.

Let’s talk goals: at the time of writing, there have been 34,511 goals scored since the inception of the Premier League in 1992, but which outfielder has played the most minutes having scored only one of them? That would be former Southampton defender Claus Lundekvam, who trudged out there for 24,731 minutes and only found the net once, against Wolverhampton Wanderers in 2004, which also happened to be his 250th league game for the Saints. “I’m a man for the big occasions,” he said at the time.

It’s not really worth going through the 606 other players who have scored only one Premier League goal, but if it’s efficiency in terms of quality you’re after, then you can’t really look beyond Erik Edman. His solitary strike came for Spurs against Liverpool, and fits firmly into the ‘why was he even thinking about shooting from there?’ category, sailing into the top corner from roughly 40 yards. A very low xB (expected banger) rating, but it delivered.

To score, you have to shoot, and some players don’t do that very often: Archie Gray is currently the most shot-shy player since the data revolution began in 2003. The Tottenham Hotspur utility man has played 1,814 Premier League minutes and taken just one shot — which was at least on target — against Bournemouth last season, but the wait for that second effort goes on. At least he has touched the ball more than once in the opposition penalty area, which is more than can be said for Liam Bridcutt, who only managed one in 1,754 minutes for Sunderland.

And to shoot, you have to touch the ball. In his 342 Premier League appearances for Leicester City, that wasn’t usually much of a problem for Jamie Vardy, but he’s the man who has played the most minutes in a game while touching the ball just once: that was against Aston Villa in 2021-22, when he came off the bench for the final 25 minutes, replacing Ademola Lookman. Additional point: who else has no memory of Lookman playing for Leicester?

What about assists? Step forward former defender James Collins, who spent 22,799 minutes over 279 appearances and teed up a colleague just once: that was for West Ham United against West Bromwich Albion in 2013, launching a free kick from deep into the box for Andy Carroll to send a sweet first-time volley into the corner.

If you want to guarantee goals when you watch a game, you might want to wait until Dejan Kulusevski is back fit, because he has the most Premier League appearances with just a single 0-0 draw, which admittedly might have more to do with Ange Postecoglou managing him for most of his time at Spurs, rather than the Swede being a goal magnet. Still, unlucky to everyone who was at Brentford 0-0 Tottenham Hotspur in April 2022.

Ben Brereton Diaz still holds the record for most Premier League games played without winning a single one of them, at 24, but what about just one win? That, for now at least, is Tyler Dibling, who has appeared 33 times without registering three points: that’s what comes of playing for Southampton last season, a team that won just twice — Dibling was an unused substitute for their victory against Ipswich Town, but he did play when they beat his current club Everton in November. Admittedly, the way David Moyes’ men have started the season, he might not hold this record for much longer.

Will Tyler Dibling finally earn a second Premier League win when Everton face Aston Villa on Saturday? (James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)

And finally, speaking of that vintage 2024-25 Southampton team, it is they who are responsible for the permanent Premier League manager who has taken charge of the most games with a single victory. Russell Martin was dispensed with after 16 games — just that Everton win to his name — and nobody else has managed more than that with just one win.

Weirdly, Southampton are fertile ground for this one: Steve Wigley also managed 16 games with one win, for Southampton and Bolton Wanderers, but some of those were as caretaker. Similarly, Ruben Selles took charge of 15 as a permanent manager with one win, but spoiled the statistic by also gaining a victory in a single game as a caretaker.

So there we have it: your Premier League one-time wonders. And people say nothing good comes from poring over statistics.

(Top photo: Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)