[Sports] What is the latest opening goal in any Premier League season?

[GL HERO SHIMA]

“The first Premier League goal of the season came after 87 minutes,” tweets Daniel Hill. “What is the longest wait for the first goal from the start of a Premier League campaign?”

The answer depends in part on whether you count minutes gone in the season or cumulative minutes played. Let us explain. Peter Beagrie scored the first goal of the 1993-94 season after 10 minutes of Everton’s game at Southampton. That was one of 10 3pm fixtures (standalone games at the start of the season weren’t a thing until 2003-04), so the first goal was scored 10 minutes after the season began, but also after 100 combined minutes of top-flight football up and down the country.

Joshua Zirkzee’s winner for Manchester United comes in at 87 minutes either way, which puts it in third place on both tables. Second place belongs to 2007-08, when Michael Chopra scored a 93rd-minute winner for promoted Sunderland against Spurs in the opening game of the season. As nobody counts added time in answers like this, we’ll call it 90 minutes.

The leader, both in consecutive and cumulative minutes, is 2010-11. That began with a Saturday lunchtime game between Spurs and Man City. It finished goalless, thanks mainly to a spectacular performance from a young Joe Hart, so the first goal of the season came during the 3pm games. It was scored in the 14th minute by Blackburn’s Nikola Kalinic; there were six games being played simultaneously, which means the goal came after 104 minutes of the season and 174 minutes of cumulative play.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/aug/21/latest-opening-goal-premier-league-season-knowledge