🔗 Share this article

A major talking point of the EPL this campaign concerns the reduction of scoring in open-play scenarios and how sides have been scoring increasingly from set-plays instead.

When we compare goal sources 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 set-plays and spot-kicks, leading to 13 fewer overall.

Considering overall statistics, efforts on goal clubs are making show a remarkable drop of 370 in open-play than this time previously.

Even with the significant rise in dead-ball scores, records show just two more shots created from them outside of spot-kicks, indicating the efficiency clubs are at finding ways to score from set-pieces.

Goal Statistics Reveal the Tale

The 301 goals recorded in the first 110 fixtures so far averages out at 2.74 scores each match, which if it continued for all 38 games might be the lowest for five years, from five seasons ago (2.69 average).

Yet merely under 200 goals scored in open play equates to 1.78 per fixture and is heading to be the smallest for since 2009-10, back in 2009-10 (1.76 average).

That campaign also marks the sole English top-flight campaign to witness goals scored more often from dead-balls without spot-kicks than the current rate of 0.77 per game (0.79).

What Clubs Account for This Change?

When it comes to goals scored from open play, Wolverhampton Wanderers have recorded the largest drop, scoring a mere four in their first 11 fixtures, 10 less than this point the previous campaign.

Apart from Wolves, the EPL's decline in goals from open play is predominantly a London phenomenon, with five out of the city's seven teams scoring at least five goals fewer from open-play than last season.

To be fair, this is mainly because their scoring lots of goals at the start of the previous campaign instead of them having difficulty to score in open-play the current term.

Meanwhile Man City have experienced the biggest increase, with nearly all of their 23 goals so far coming in open-play.

Set-Piece Success

Comparing newly promoted sides with those that were relegated they took the place of. Play-off champions the Black Cats have netted an additional three scores in open-play than the Saints managed in their opening 11 matches on their way to the drop last season.

In terms of scoring from set-plays (aside from spot-kicks), the Gunners and the Blues have experienced the biggest increase, with both sides compensating for the five fewer scores that they've produced in open play with identical figures from dead-ball situations.

United have recorded twice as many scores from set-pieces as they achieved in the 11 games the previous campaign before their coach took charge, while Sunderland additionally are better at converting than the club they replaced they superseded.

City seem unaware of the trend about scoring more from set-plays, because they've netted a reduction of three than last season, as have Forest, though this could be because of the tactical shift they've attempted to adopt.

League-Wide Trends

Six teams – Arsenal, Chelsea, the Cottagers, Newcastle, Tottenham and the Hammers – are the current campaign's primary examples by netting less scores from open-play and more from set-pieces, while Manchester City are the sole team to go against the grain so far by doing the exact opposite.

It will be interesting to see if sides carry on to depend greatly on set-plays as the campaign progresses or if they regain their all-round creativity and start converting additional scores in open play also.