The Sporting Intelligence website suggests that there has been a Premier League goal drought with a resurgence of the 1-0 result.
Up to the start of this season, 766 August games had been played in the 21 completed seasons of Premier League football, yielding 1,954 goals at a rate of 2.55 goals per game.
This season the 27 August games yielded just 54 goals at exactly two goals a game –a shortfall of more than 20 per cent on the all-time average figure.
The Sporting Intelligence website suggests that there has been a Premier League goal drought with a resurgence of the 1-0 result.
Up to the start of this season, 766 August games had been played in the 21 completed seasons of Premier League football, yielding 1,954 goals at a rate of 2.55 goals per game.
This season the 27 August games yielded just 54 goals at exactly two goals a game –a shortfall of more than 20 per cent on the all-time average figure.
Not only that: this slump comes at a time when the last three seasons have seen goals being netted at record rates. Only once before, in August 1998, have Premier League goals been in shorter supply at the start of a campaign. Then 29 games saw only 51 goals scored.
Now that the rewards from television revenue are even greater, does this lead clubs to play more cautiously and defensively given the financial importance of staying in the top flight? What effect does this have the attractiveness of the game both for those there and those watching on television?
Some long-term perspective is needed here. In their fascinating book The Numbers Game Chris Anderson and David Sally note that there was a persistent downward trend in the number of goals per game, but in the last sixty years there has been a levelling off.
Teams now win by fewer goals than they used to, with the average goal difference in a match declining from one goal to less than half a goal over the last century or so. In one hundred years, the differences between teams have declined by about 50 per cent. In the last thirty years, even as the total number of goals has levelled out, goal difference has continued to shrink.
They suggest that this represents a maturation of football with greater convergence between teams as best practice is shared. However, it may also be that greater financial rewards induce greater caution. Moreover, if the team has established a solid lead, the better players and expensive assets may be taken off to reduce the risk of injury, reducing the likelihood of a big scoring margin.
Football, of course, has always been a low scoring game. As Anderson and Sally show in a graph, football has by far the lowest scores of the goal scoring games with basketball at the other extreme. Only ice hockey is anywhere near.
One month’s figures don’t represent a trend and could be the result of a combination of chance factors. However, it is interesting to speculate whether fans’ enjoyment of a match has anything to do with the number of goals scored or whether a win of one-nil gives sufficient satisfaction.
The matches I have always enjoyed most are those where my team comes from trailing badly to win the game. We have had a few of those games at Charlton, notably the 7-6 win over Huddersfield Town when Charlton had been trailing 1-5 and last season the 5-4 win over Cardiff City.