🔗 Share this article

A key narrative of the EPL season so far concerns the reduction of goals scored in open play and the way clubs are netting increasingly from dead-ball situations as an alternative.

Comparing goal sources to the first 11 games last season, there have been a drop of 39 goals in open-play and 26 more from team set-pieces and penalties, leading to 13 less overall.

Considering overall statistics, the number of shots clubs are making reveal a staggering 370 fewer in open play than at this stage last season.

And despite the notable jump in set-play finishes, we've actually seen just two more shots generated from them outside of spot-kicks, showing how effective clubs are at devising strategies to net from dead-ball situations.

Goal Statistics Tell a Story

Over 300 goals notched in 110 matches up to now works out at 2.74 goals per game, if maintained for the whole season could be the least for five years, from five seasons ago (2.69 per game).

Yet merely 196 goals scored in open-play averages out 1.78 per game and is on course to be the smallest for 16 years, since 2009-10 (1.76).

The 2009-10 season also marks the only Premier League season to witness goals scored more often from non-penalty set-pieces than the current rate of 0.77 each match (0.79 average).

What Clubs Are Most Responsible?

Regarding goals scored from open-play, Wolverhampton Wanderers have recorded by far the biggest decline, netting just four in 11 games, 10 less than this point the previous campaign.

Outside of Wolverhampton, the Premier League's drop in open play goals is largely a trend among London clubs, with five out of the city's seven teams recording a minimum of five goals fewer from open-play than last season.

To be fair, this is mainly because them scoring many scores at the beginning of the previous campaign instead of them having difficulty to score in open play this season.

Meanwhile Man City have experienced the most significant jump, with nearly all of their 23 scores so far coming in open play.

Dead-Ball Dominance

Comparing clubs that came up with the teams that went down they took the place of. Play-off winners Sunderland have recorded three extra scores in open-play than Southampton did in their opening 11 matches on their way to relegation last season.

Regarding goals scored from dead-ball situations (not counting spot-kicks), Arsenal and the Blues have recorded the biggest increase, with both sides compensating for the five fewer scores that they've produced in open play with an equal amount from dead-ball situations.

Manchester United have recorded two times more scores from set-pieces as they achieved in matchday 11 last season before the manager took charge, while Sunderland again have been better at netting than the club they replaced they superseded.

City don't seem to have got the memo about increasing scoring from set-pieces, because they've netted three less than the previous campaign, like Nottingham Forest, although that might be down to the altered approach they've attempted to adopt.

League-Wide Trends

Six teams – the Gunners, the Blues, the Cottagers, Newcastle, Tottenham and West Ham – are this season's leading trend-followers by scoring fewer goals from open-play and additional from set-plays, while City stand as the sole team to go against the grain so far by performing the contrary.

It remains to be seen to observe if sides continue to rely so heavily on set-plays as the season goes on or if they find again their all-round creativity and begin converting more goals in open-play too.