If you’re the manager of a struggling Premier League club, focusing on not conceding goals makes good sense. The last time the outright worst defence in the top flight survived relegation was Crystal Palace in 1989-90.
Conversely, the outright lowest scorers have stayed up on eight different occasions in the Premier League era, including the glorious 1996-97 campaign when Leeds United scored 28 goals in 38 league games and finished 11th.
Even so, this season things have got a little out of hand. To provide some context, only the bottom three scored goals at a rate of less than one per game in 2021-22.
This season, seven teams are doing so: Palace, Wolves, Everton, Nottingham Forest, West Ham, Bournemouth, and Southampton. Last year, Leeds ranked 17th for goals scored, with 42. This year, 42 goals is on course to rank 12th.
The nine clubs currently separated by four points in this unprecedented Premier League relegation bunfight are not all the same; Leicester and Leeds are exceptions as clubs with decent attacking records and leaky defences.
Poor attacking returns are also not exclusively restricted to these strugglers: Chelsea have 29 in 27 league games and Liverpool have scored 13 in 13 away games. But in general, this is a relegation battle defined by an inability to score goals. Or, to put it another way: Wolves went over a year without a striker scoring a goal and they’re 13th.
Premier league table
Oddly, this chronic lack of goals has not led to a lack of points. It might feel like every club from Crystal Palace downwards could have no complaints if they went down, but West Ham are in the relegation zone having collected points at a rate of 1.08 per game. In 2017-18, as an example, 1.08 points per game was enough to finish 13th (West Ham know this, because it was them).
The explanation for the lack of goals but not lack of points is pretty evident: this has been the 1-0 season. In each of the last six seasons, 1-1 has been the most common scoreline. But this season so far, a 1-0 home win beats it. And you can see why: Southampton, Everton, Forest and Wolves have won 25 league games between them – 16 of those wins have been 1-0. That is particularly true for those intra-bottom-half matches.
The explanation for this chronic lack of goals is just as self-evident: a chronic lack of goalscorers. But it’s goalscorers of a particular type that have suddenly become an endangered species.
Over the last three full seasons, a list of centre forwards for teams that finished 12th or lower who scored 10 or more league goals in a season: Ivan Toney, Ollie Watkins, Teemu Pukki (twice), Emmanuel Dennis, Danny Ings, Callum Wilson, Chris Wood (twice), Christian Benteke, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Troy Deeney, Neal Maupay. I haven’t included Richarlison or Wilfried Zaha in that list because they often played as a wide forward.
The list of centre forwards for clubs in 12th or lower currently on course to score 10 or more league goals this season: Rodrigo (and even then he hasn’t always played as a centre forward and he scored almost 40 per cent of his goals in August). The only other players in that cluster of clubs who are on course for double figures: Harvey Barnes and James Maddison (both attacking midfielders, nine apiece), Brennan Johnson (wide forward, seven goals), James Ward-Prowse (seven goals, three of which were free-kicks and one a penalty).
To find another centre forward after Rodrigo in the bottom nine clubs, you have to go down to Che Adams on five goals and then Taiwo Awoniyi on four. Adams has scored three times since August and Awoniyi has started nine league matches. By any measure, this is extraordinary.
If goals are down, you immediately look to shot numbers for evidence. And we find some: last season, Watford ranked 19th in the Premier League (and finished 19th) with 10.45 shots per match. So far this season, five clubs average fewer than Watford did last season.
Some of this is clearly tactical. At Nottingham Forest, Steve Cooper plays with split forwards, looks to use the counter attack to create chances and aims to keep clean sheets at home. Since January, Bournemouth have done the same with their new wingers. Clean sheet numbers of the clubs at the bottom are up on last season, suggesting that having a large clump of relegation candidates incentivises managers to try and win tight, low-scoring matches where each goal is highly valuable.
Elsewhere, blame bad luck: Calvert-Lewin has been injured for most of the season at Everton, Patrick Bamford has struggled for match fitness at Leeds, Sasa Kalajdzic got badly injured in August at Wolves and Raul Jimenez isn’t the same player after his serious head injury.
But there is also no escaping that the strikers of those clubs have almost all suffered desperate seasons according to our preseason expectations. Gianluca Scamacca has struggled badly at West Ham (and Michail Antonio declined). Age has caught up with Jamie Vardy, but neither Patson Daka nor Kelechi Iheanacho have produced consistently. Neal Maupay hasn’t worked out at Everton; the same is true of Emmanuel Dennis at Forest, Hwang Hee-chan and Matheus Cunha at Wolves and just about every striker Crystal Palace have signed over the last half decade.
And that’s also apparent in the numbers. In 2021-22, four clubs in the Premier League underperformed their expected goals (the number of goals we would expect from the chances created/shots taken) by an average of more than 0.1 per match across the season: Brighton, Watford, Burnley and Norwich.
This season so far, nine Premier League clubs are underperforming their expected goals by an average of more than 0.1 per match. That list includes Newcastle, Liverpool and Chelsea and then six of the strugglers.
Their finishing is costing them and, if their finishing continues to let them down, they will pay a heavy price. As we enter the longest home straight in Premier League history and its tightest-ever relegation battle, the ability to find a goalscorer may be the difference. That might take tactical courage, a dose of good fortune with injuries or just better execution of technique by individuals. Either way, something is going to have to give.
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