Manchester United won their 20th Premier League crown in the triumphant 2012-13 season. It was also the last season in football for the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson. Having lost the title on goal difference the year before, Sir Alex brought in Robin van Persie who went on to score 26 goals in his maiden campaign.
Van Persie had a direct hand in 35 goals that season and also won 10 Man of the match awards. His first half hatrick against Aston Villa at Old Trafford sealed the title. He also played a role in all league games remaining injury free all season.
26
De Gea firmly established himself in the 2012-13 season. He played 2520 minutes, conceded 26 goals and kept 11 clean sheets. At 76.32% his shots saved were just below the league high of 77.22% by Petr Cech. Anders Lindegaard played 900 minutes and kept 2 clean sheets.
5th
Man United had the 5th best defense in the league that season. After being fairly leaky initially, United’s defense improved as the season wore on. They conceded just 15 goals in the 2nd half of the season. Evra made a whooping 67 tackles while Rafael was equally impressive with 62. Carrick being his usual self made most interceptions (76), Jonny Evans also contributed heavily in the heart of the defense with 47 interceptions to his name.
37
Valencia and van Persie made the most fouls (37). Rafael was the only player to get a red card all season. Rooney and Scholes lived up to their notorious reputation and conceded 7 yellow cards each. Scholes retired with 97 career yellow cards just 2 shy of the all time league record.
2443
Number of passes Michael Carrick made, almost double of Evra at 1238. Manchester United averaged the highest pass completion rate in the Premier League, at 85.7%.. Scholes as always deserves a special mention with a whopping 94% pass accuracy.
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The number of chances Robin Van Persie created as he scored the most goals (26). Rooney finished a distant 2nd creating 49 chances all season. Valencia who played on the right wing also created an impressive 40 chances. Ashley Young played just 17 matches and yet created 35 chances from the left wing.
Rooney had to play deeper to accommodate van Persie in the team. He made full use of this opportunity and proved his worth as a playmaker with 10 assists and 12 goals. Van Persie himself had 8 assists while the wide players Valencia and Evra recorded 5 each.
United had a crossing accuracy of 23.6%, slightly higher than the league average of 23%. Javier Hernandez had the best conversion rate amongst players to score at least 10 goals in the Premier League – converting 23% of his attempts on goal.
11
United scored the most goals in the League that season, 11 more than Chelsea who came second. This was largely due to the quality of strikers available to Sir Alex. Van Persie and Rooney (26 and 12 goals respectively) were aided extremely well by Kagawa (6 goals) and Hernandez (10 goals).
12
Defenders Patrice Evra, Rafael, Jonny Evans, Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand combined for 12 goals. 20 different players scored at least 1 goal that season- a club record.