Penalty kicks in the 2021/22 Premier League were rare on a per-match basis, but they clustered heavily around certain teams whose attacking styles and defensive habits repeatedly brought VAR and referees into play. Understanding who tended to win and concede spot-kicks, and why, turned penalty markets from guesswork into a question of patterns in box entries, dribbling, and defensive decision-making.
Why penalties are structurally important despite being rare
Across the 2021/22 Premier League season, 103 penalties were awarded in 380 matches, giving an average of about 0.27 penalties per game. Each spot-kick carried a much higher expected goal value than a regular shot, meaning a single decision could swing handicaps, totals and both-teams-to-score outcomes. Because many betting markets price matches as if goals are generated from “normal” open play, teams that systematically created or conceded more penalty situations than average offered hidden leverage in props focusing on “penalty awarded” or penalty takers.
Which teams won the most penalties in 2021/22?
Penalty statistics show that Chelsea led the league in penalties scored in 2021/22, converting eight spot-kicks over the campaign. Behind them, Liverpool and Manchester City each scored seven penalties, with Brentford close behind on six, reflecting the way these clubs repeatedly drove the ball into congested box areas where marginal contacts were scrutinised by VAR. When ranked by penalties won, Chelsea again topped the list with eight, followed by Everton, City and Arsenal among the most frequently favoured teams inside the area.
How attacking style and personnel shaped penalties won
The concentration of penalties around Chelsea, Liverpool, City, Brentford and Arsenal was not random; it reflected specific patterns of play. High-possession sides that attacked through dribbling wingers and inverted forwards, regularly entering the box with the ball under control, naturally created more situations where defenders had to make last-ditch interventions. Chelsea’s and City’s repeated cut-backs and underlaps, Liverpool’s aggressive runs from wide, and Brentford’s targeted box occupation all forced defenders into tackles and blocks in zones where even small contacts were reviewable by VAR, increasing the likelihood of spot-kicks over time.
Which teams conceded penalties unusually often?
On the defensive side, some clubs repeatedly found themselves penalised for fouls or handballs in the box, either because of their style of defending or the sheer volume of time they spent under pressure. VAR reviews from 2021/22 document a string of penalties given against teams like Chelsea, Arsenal, Watford and Norwich, often for handballs or clumsy challenges following sustained attacks from stronger opponents. Relegation candidates who defended deep for long periods, facing high shot and cross volumes, naturally accumulated more risky interventions in and around the six-yard area, which increased both actual and overturned penalty calls.
Comparing high-penalty and low-penalty teams
Looking at penalties won and scored reveals clear contrasts in how often different clubs depended on spot-kicks.
Illustrative 2021/22 penalty profiles
| Team | Penalties scored | General trend |
| Chelsea | 8 | Highest in league; frequent box entries and VAR incidents. |
| Liverpool | 7 | Aggressive wide play and dribblers drawing fouls. |
| Man City | 7 | Constant box presence through positional play. |
| Brentford | 6 | Direct attacks and set-piece pressure leading to fouls. |
| Arsenal | 5–6 range (won and scored) | Wide rotations and forwards attacking half-spaces. |
These profiles indicate that penalty-heavy teams tended to combine regular possession in dangerous zones with players who attacked defenders off the dribble or under contact. In contrast, sides with more speculative shooting or limited penalty-area entries relied less on spot-kicks, making their goalscoring patterns more dependent on open-play finishing and set pieces rather than referee decisions.
How UFABET-style markets price penalty-related bets
Penalty awarded markets—whether on “any penalty in match” or “penalty to a specific team”—offer higher odds than standard sides or totals because spot-kicks remain relatively infrequent events. Serious bettors using a football-focused betting interface such as ufabet could narrow that uncertainty by checking team-level penalty histories, noting, for instance, that Chelsea, City, Liverpool and Brentford sat above league averages while some mid-table sides rarely saw the spot at either end. When those histories aligned with tactical expectations—dribbling wingers vs aggressive full-backs, high pressing vs rushed clearances—the offered prices on “penalty awarded” or penalty-taker props stopped being speculative and started to reflect a quantifiable edge.
Why casino online contexts can obscure real penalty edges
Within a broader casino online environment, penalty bets can look like pure novelty—fun side markets lumped in with other high-variance options—because they cash infrequently and often hinge on seemingly random referee calls. Guides to penalty betting emphasise that the basic yes/no market often pays longer odds on “yes,” which tempts casual bettors to treat it as a lottery rather than a probability question anchored in team patterns. Disentangling that perception requires recognising that penalty frequency varies meaningfully by league and by club, and that competitions with VAR, including the Premier League, see higher detection of box fouls than earlier eras, slightly raising the baseline frequency compared with older historical data.
Where penalty trends fail to translate into betting value
Even with clear 2021/22 trends, there were several reasons why penalty stats did not automatically produce profitable bets. Year-to-year penalty counts are noisy, and small-sample spikes—for example, a team winning several penalties in a short stretch—can regress the following season or even within the same campaign. Refereeing emphasis also shifts over time; clampdowns on particular types of handball or contact can be loosened or tightened, altering award rates independently of team behaviour. Finally, books increasingly incorporate team-level penalty histories into pricing of “penalty awarded” markets, meaning that obvious angles around top penalty winners like Chelsea or Liverpool were less likely to offer mispriced odds once their patterns became widely known.
Summary
Penalty trends in the 2021/22 Premier League showed a clear concentration of awards around teams whose attacking styles flooded the box with controlled touches and dribbles, with Chelsea leading the league in penalties scored and joined by Liverpool, Manchester City and Brentford near the top. On the other side, defensively stretched or deep-lying teams accumulated concessions as repeated emergency actions in the area exposed them to VAR scrutiny. For bettors, the real edge came from linking those patterns to tactical context and evolving refereeing standards, rather than from chasing raw penalty counts as if they were stable, season-to-season guarantees.
