Is the Entertainment Fading? The Drop of Open-Play Goal Scoring
A major talking point of the EPL season so far concerns the drop of scoring in open play and the way sides are finding goals more from dead-ball situations instead.
Looking at how goals have been scored to matchday 11 the prior season, we see a drop of 39 goals in open play and 26 more from team set-pieces and spot-kicks, resulting in 13 less overall.
Considering overall statistics, shot attempts teams are taking reveal a staggering 370 fewer in open play than this time last season.
And despite the significant rise in set-play finishes, records show just two more attempts generated from these situations outside of penalties, indicating how effective sides are at discovering methods to score from set-pieces.
Goal Statistics Tell the Tale
301 total goals notched in 110 games up to now works out at nearly 2.75 goals each match, if maintained for the whole season would be the least for half a decade, from five seasons ago (2.69 per game).
However, only 196 goals coming in open-play averages out 1.78 per game and is on course to be the smallest for since 2009-10, since 2009-10 (1.76).
2009-10 is also the only Premier League campaign to experience scoring at a higher rate from non-penalty set-pieces than this season's rate of 0.77 per fixture (0.79).
Which Sides Are Most Responsible?
In terms of goals scored from open play, Wolves have seen the most significant decline, scoring a mere four in 11 matches, 10 less than at this stage the previous campaign.
Excluding Wolves, England's top division's decline in open-play scoring is predominantly a trend among London clubs, with five of the capital's seven sides scoring five or more goals fewer from open-play than last season.
Honestly, this is mainly because them scoring many goals at the early stages of the previous campaign as opposed to them really struggling to score in open-play this campaign.
Conversely City have recorded the biggest increase, with all but one of their 23 scores to date originating in open-play.
Set-Piece Success
We've compared clubs that came up with the teams that went down they replaced. Play-off champions the Black Cats have recorded three more goals in open play than Southampton did in their first 11 games on their way to demotion the previous campaign.
When it comes to scoring from set-pieces (not counting penalties), Arsenal and the Blues have recorded the most significant jump, with each team compensating for the five fewer goals that they've scored in open-play with an equal amount from set-pieces.
United have scored two times more goals from set-pieces as they did in the first 11 matches last season prior to Ruben Amorim assumed control, while Sunderland again are better at scoring than the fellow red-and-whites they superseded.
Manchester City appear not to have received the trend about scoring more from set-plays, as they've scored a reduction of three than last season, like Forest, though that might be down to the change in style they're working to install.
League-Wide Trends
Six clubs – Arsenal, Chelsea, the Cottagers, Newcastle, Tottenham and West Ham – are the current campaign's primary examples by scoring fewer scores from open play and increased from set-plays, while Man City are the only side to go against the grain so far by performing the exact opposite.
It will be fascinating to see if teams carry on to depend greatly on set-pieces as the campaign progresses or if they find again their overall inventiveness and start scoring more goals in open play also.
