🔗 Share this article

A major talking point of the Premier League this campaign is the drop of scoring in open play and how teams are finding goals increasingly from set-plays instead.

When we compare scoring methods to matchday 11 last season, there have been a drop of 39 scored in open-play and 26 more from team set-pieces and spot-kicks, giving us 13 fewer altogether.

Examining the bigger picture, efforts on goal sides are producing show a remarkable drop of 370 in open play than this time last season.

Regardless of the significant rise in dead-ball scores, records show just two more attempts created from them excluding spot-kicks, showing how effective teams have been at finding ways to net from set-pieces.

Scoring Rates Show a Story

The 301 goals recorded in 110 games to date calculates at nearly 2.75 goals per game, if this persists for the entire campaign could be the smallest for five years, since 2020-21 (2.69 per game).

Yet merely 196 goals scored in open play equates to 1.78 each match and is on course to be the lowest for 16 years, back in 2009-10 (1.76 average).

That campaign is also the sole English top-flight season to witness goals scored more often from non-penalty set-pieces than the current rate of 0.77 per game (0.79 average).

Which Sides Account for This Change?

Regarding goals scored from open-play, Wolverhampton Wanderers have seen the largest drop, scoring only four in 11 games, 10 fewer than this point last season.

Outside of Wolverhampton, the EPL's decline in goals from open play is largely a London phenomenon, with five out of the London's seven clubs netting at least five less scores from open-play than the previous year.

In fairness, this is primarily due to them netting lots of scores at the early stages of the previous campaign as opposed to them really struggling to find the net in open-play this campaign.

Conversely Man City have experienced the largest rise, with nearly all of their 23 goals to date coming in open-play.

Set-Piece Success

Looking at clubs that came up with those that were relegated they took the place of. Play-off winners the Black Cats have scored three more goals in open play than the Saints did in their opening 11 matches leading to the drop the previous campaign.

When it comes to goals scored from set-plays (not counting spot-kicks), the Gunners and the Blues have seen the most significant jump, with the two clubs replacing the five less goals that they've produced in open play with identical figures from dead-ball situations.

United have scored double the number goals from set-plays as they did in matchday 11 the previous campaign prior to their coach assumed control, while Sunderland additionally have been better at scoring than the fellow red-and-whites that went down.

City appear not to have received the message about increasing scoring from set-pieces, since they've scored three fewer than the previous campaign, like the Reds, though this could be because of the tactical shift they have tried to implement.

General Tendencies

Six sides – the Gunners, Chelsea, the Cottagers, the Magpies, Tottenham and the Hammers – represent the current campaign's primary examples by recording fewer scores from open play and additional from set-pieces, while City are the sole team to defy the pattern so far by achieving the exact opposite.

It will be interesting to see if clubs carry on to rely so heavily on set-pieces as the campaign progresses or if they find again their general attacking flair and begin converting increased totals in open play as well.