Where Has the Excitement Gone? The Decline of Open-Play Goals from Open Play
A major talking point of England's top flight this campaign concerns the decline of goals scored in open-play scenarios and how teams have been scoring increasingly from dead-ball situations as an alternative.
Looking at scoring methods to matchday 11 last season, we see a drop of 39 goals in open-play and 26 more from team set-pieces and spot-kicks, leading to 13 fewer altogether.
Examining overall statistics, the number of shots sides are producing have seen an incredible drop of 370 in open-play than at this stage previously.
Regardless of the significant rise in set-piece goals, records show only two additional shots generated from these situations excluding penalties, demonstrating the efficiency sides have been at discovering methods to net from dead-ball chances.
Scoring Rates Reveal the Tale
301 total goals notched in 110 matches up to now averages out at 2.74 goals per fixture, if this persists for the whole season could be the lowest for half a decade, since 2020-21 (2.69 average).
However, only 196 scores scored in open-play equates to 1.78 per fixture and is tracking to be the lowest for 16 seasons, from 16 years ago (1.76).
The 2009-10 season is also the sole English top-flight campaign to experience scoring more frequently from set-plays excluding penalties than the current rate of 0.77 per fixture (0.79 per game).
Which Teams Bear the Most Responsibility?
When it comes to goals scored from open-play, Wolves have seen by far the biggest drop, scoring just four in 11 matches, 10 fewer than this point last season.
Outside of Wolverhampton, the EPL's fall in open play goals is very much a London thing, with half of the city's seven teams recording at least five goals fewer from open play than the previous year.
In fairness, this is primarily due to their scoring many goals at the start of last season instead of them really struggling to score in open play this campaign.
At the same time Manchester City have experienced the largest rise, with nearly all of the 23 they've scored to date originating in open-play.
Dead-Ball Dominance
We've compared newly promoted sides with the relegated sides they replaced. Play-off winners the Black Cats have scored three extra goals in open-play than the Saints achieved in their first 11 games en route to relegation the previous campaign.
When it comes to scoring from set-plays (aside from penalties), Arsenal and the Blues have recorded the largest rise, with both sides replacing the reduction of five scores that they've scored in open play with an equal amount from dead-ball situations.
United have scored twice as many scores from set-plays as they managed in the 11 games the previous campaign before Ruben Amorim took over, while the Black Cats again have been better at netting than the fellow red-and-whites they superseded.
Manchester City don't seem to have got the message about increasing scoring from set-pieces, since they've scored three fewer than the previous campaign, similar to Nottingham Forest, although that might be down to the altered approach they have tried to implement.
Overall Patterns
Six sides – Arsenal, Chelsea, the Cottagers, Newcastle, Tottenham and the Hammers – are the current campaign's top trend-setters by scoring fewer scores from open-play and increased from set-plays, while Man City stand as the only side to go against the grain so far by doing the contrary.
It will be interesting to watch if teams carry on to depend greatly on set-pieces as the season goes on or if they find again their all-round creativity and begin netting increased totals in open-play too.
