Where Have All The Premier League Goals Gone?

Last weekend was another pivotal round of games within this season’s Premier League schedule. Arsenal extended their lead at the top to nine points, taking another step closer to a first title win since 2004.

No shortage of drama as the Gunners earned a late win at the expense of Everton but not necessarily a game full of entertainment at the Emirates. Mikel Arteta’s men often accused of sacrificing style in order to win matches – in fairness to the North London outfit it seems to be working.

Then again, it would be unfair to simply lay the lack of entertainment at Arsenal’s door. Across a full Premier League weekend programme of 10 matches, just 16 goals were scored in total. An average of 1.6 goals per game, three of the ten ended in a bore draw.

Which begs the question, where have the goals gone? Is this being deemed a boring season because Arsenal look likely to finally cross the finishing line in first place or do the numbers paint a league-wide picture.

If we look at the average goals scored per season since the 2017/18 campaign, we start to get a better idea of current trends.

Of course, with there being more than 30 years’ worth of Premier League data to fall back on, we could dial the data sample back much further. The only slight issue with that, is that football goes through cycles and the start of the 2017/18 feels like the natural start point of this current one.

Especially as it is the last season before VAR was introduced and that in itself gives a neat before and after marker. Here you can see that the first season of it being plugged in, there was an increase from 2.68 to 2.82 goals per game on average.

A tally that was matched three seasons later after a slight dip during the two Covid seasons, a slight amount of volatility but the pattern staying largely the same in the first five campaigns of this data sample.

2.82 goals per game at the end of the 2021/22 season, only slightly improved in the following edition of the competition at 2.85. Still largely within the pattern of the past half decade or so, still only slightly over 2.5 goals per game – this in itself a very important biting point when it comes to betting.

But then a huge goal explosion came about, the 2023/24 season was undoubtedly the goal rush in the Premier League. A total of 1,246 goals were scored across 380 league fixtures, an average of 3.28 per game.

Why such an explosion? A mixture between stronger attacks at the top of the table and weaker defences at the bottom. League winners Manchester City averaging 2.52 goals a game themselves, Sheffield United shipping 2.73 per game at the other end – an unwanted Premier League record.

Attackers running riot, relegation fodder getting pummelled week in and week out. The perfect combination when it comes to the Premier League. For what is intrinsically such a low scoring sport, the 2023/24 season was the jackpot.

As with every peak, there is always a drop off. The question is how big that drop off will be and when looking at the 2024/25 season, the average goals per game count fell from 3.28 to 2.93. A decrease of 0.35 from one season to the next.

Not a great deal in terms of decline. In the simplest terms for every three games played in the Premier League, an extra goal in total would have been scored. However, even with a slight drop, nearly three goals per encounter is not to be sniffed at in terms of entertainment value.

Which leads us to the current campaign and at the time of writing there are still 79 matches of the Premier League to be played. The 20 teams in the division have played 301 encounters between them, at an average of 2.73 goals per game.

0.20 down on last season, more than half a goal down on the peak of two seasons ago and if we re-arrange the nine season data table in order of average goals scored, we can get a better idea of the relative recent drought.

This season currently sits sixth out of the last nine seasons when ranking average goals per game. That may sound slightly more impressive when ranked against comparative data but it is only 0.05 goals better than the lowest rank and this was the pre-VAR season in the data table.

With that being noted, pockets of Premier League support yearn for VAR to be unplugged, if that was the reason, would it be at the trade-off of goals? The technology may be a video nasty but you could argue that it has at least added to the entertainment of English football’s top tier.

So where have the goals gone across the last six months or so? Well you can certainly make a case for the defence and not only because leaders Arsenal have been so miserly at the back but also because the teams at the bottom have not been shipping goals for fun.

Take Wolves at the foot of the table and although their season has been earmarked for relegation since the autumn, Rob Edwards’ men are only conceding 1.74 goals per game – nearly a whole goal less than the woeful Sheffield United of two seasons ago.

Not only that but no team in the league has conceded more than two goals per game on average, meaning that even struggling teams that are lacking goals can still be considered defensively sound overall.

Maybe it is just the optics of it all, Arsenal’s goals coming from their set-piece cheat code are not easy on the eye but they are effective. Should Mikel Arteta’s men get over the line their supporters are going to have absolutely no concern at not being top of the style charts.

Is this the start of a new trend? Is it more a regression to the mean? We will find out the answer next season but there is no doubt that this season is asking a rather interesting question when it comes to Premier League goals.