Where Has the Excitement Gone? This Decline of the Goal Scoring
A key narrative of England's top flight this campaign is the decline of scoring in open play and the way teams are netting more from set-pieces instead.
Looking at scoring methods to the initial 11 matches the prior season, there have been a drop of 39 goals in open play and an increase of 26 from team set-pieces and penalties, resulting in 13 less in total.
If we look at overall statistics, shot attempts clubs are making have seen a remarkable 370 fewer in open play than at this stage previously.
And despite the significant rise in set-piece goals, there have actually been only two additional attempts created from these situations outside of spot-kicks, indicating how effective teams have been at discovering methods to score from set-pieces.
Scoring Rates Show an Interesting Narrative
Over 300 goals notched in the first 110 fixtures up to now works out at nearly 2.75 goals per fixture, if this persists for the entire campaign could be the lowest for five years, from five seasons ago (2.69 per game).
Yet merely under 200 goals coming in open-play translates to 1.78 per game and is heading to be the smallest for 16 seasons, back in 2009-10 (1.76 per game).
The 2009-10 season also marks the sole English top-flight campaign to see goals scored more often from set-plays excluding penalties than this campaign's frequency of 0.77 per game (0.79 per game).
What Clubs Bear the Most Responsibility?
Regarding goals scored from open play, Wolverhampton Wanderers have recorded by far the biggest decrease, scoring a mere four in their first 11 fixtures, 10 less than at this stage last season.
Excluding Wolverhampton, England's top division's decline in open-play scoring is very much a London thing, with five of the city's seven teams netting a minimum of five less scores from open play than the prior season.
In fairness, this is primarily due to their scoring numerous scores at the early stages of last season instead of them having difficulty to find the net in open-play the current term.
Meanwhile Man City have seen the most significant jump, with nearly all of the 23 they've scored to date originating in open-play.
Dead-Ball Dominance
Comparing clubs that came up with the relegated sides that they superseded. Sunderland the Black Cats have recorded three more goals in open-play than Southampton achieved in their opening 11 matches leading to relegation the previous campaign.
Regarding goals scored from set-plays (aside from spot-kicks), the Gunners and the Blues have experienced the most significant jump, with each team replacing the reduction of five scores that they've netted in open play with an equal amount from dead-ball situations.
Manchester United have scored twice as many scores from set-pieces as they managed in the 11 games the previous campaign ahead of Ruben Amorim took charge, while Sunderland again are more effective at scoring than the club they replaced they replaced.
City appear not to have received the memo about netting additional goals from set-plays, as they've scored three less than last season, similar to Forest, although that might be down to the altered approach they're working to install.
League-Wide Trends
Six teams – the Gunners, Chelsea, Fulham, the Magpies, Spurs and the Hammers – have been this season's primary examples by scoring fewer goals from open-play and more from set-pieces, while Manchester City stand as the unique club to go against the grain up to now by performing the exact opposite.
It remains to be seen to observe if clubs carry on to rely so heavily on set-plays as the season goes on or if they rediscover their all-round creativity and begin netting increased totals in open-play too.