3 years of goalscoring trends by Dominic Haynes
Coaching Xchange
For the last 3 years I’ve watched every single goal scored in the Premier League (PL). That’s 3401 goals, 2730 of which were from open play.
That’s a lot of goals.
Watching one season can offer a good picture of goalscoring trends, but they might be specific to that season. For example, the cutback as an assisting method decreased by a 1/3 in the 22/23 season before returning to the previous level in 23/24. Seasonal trends could be just that. Seasonal. A moment in time.
However, there are some trends that have been consistent across 3 seasons of Premier League football. Thankfully for you, I’ve analysed all 3401 goals so that you don’t have to.
Here are some headlines:
Finish between the posts
Across the last 3 seasons 47% of all open play goals were scored in zones 1 and 3 (Figure 1). Directly between the posts and inside the penalty box. Pure goal scorers can sense when the chance for a goal is about to be created and know that the ball is likely to land between the posts. How do they get there? Someone like Erling Haaland sprints to stay ahead of the ball until he ends up between the posts. 48% of his goals in the last 2 PL seasons have been in zones 1 and 3.
The secondary areas for goal scoring are in the corner box. Zones 5R (16%) and 5L (15%) offer 31% of goals. This could align with the rise of the inverted winger.
It seems obvious, but are you coaching your players where goals are scored?
Zones 1, 3, 5R and 5L are 7% of the total pitch space but account for 78% of all goals. So, encourage plenty of shots from these areas.
Finish quickly – Touches & Time
61% of all open play goals in the last 3 seasons have been scored off 1 touch. When you take into account set pieces, it’s nearer 80%. Goals off one or two touches made up 79% of all open play goals.
If you look at the percentage of goals scored with each touch, it demonstrates how the more touches you take, the less likely you are to score (Table 1).
However, if you need to take extra touches, and often you do, the speed of those touches counts. Erling Haaland averaged 0.55 seconds per touch and shot last season. The goal scorers in 23/24 averaged 1.8 seconds of possession per goal, however the most frequent length of time in possession before scoring was less than 1 second.
I hasten to add, I am not suggesting that we coach all players to play off 1 touch or minimal time in possession everywhere and all the time. This is purely the facts about goalscoring over the last 3 seasons in the PL. A 16-year-old may not be able to position their body to finish off 1 touch consistently, so may need more touches whilst they are coached about their body position. Likewise, a 12-year-old might not be able to receive and release a shot in 1.8 seconds.
We shouldn’t use this information as KPIs to measure young players, instead we should use it to inform our sessions and to show our players the level of performance and execution they aspire to.
Number of Touches | Percentage of Goals |
1 | 61% |
2 | 18% |
3 | 9% |
4 | 4% |
5 | 3% |
6 | 2% |
7 | 1% |
8 | 1% |
9 | 1% |
10 | 0% |
11 | 0% |
12 | 0% |
13 | 0% |
14 | 0% |
15 | 0% |
Master your instep
The instep is used in 50% of all assists and 38% of all finishes. That’s 42% of all actions leading directly to a goal. We should be developing players to have full mastery of all surfaces of their feet, but there’s no school like the old school.
80% of through balls use the instep. 70% of all crosses that lead to a goal use the instep. There are certain situations where your go to technique needs to utilize your instep. This is inescapable.
Likewise with finishing. If we analyse penalties, we see that 85% of them have been scored with the instep.
Aim low
Alisson Becker is 1.93m tall, Ederson is 1.88m. That’s 6-foot 3 inches and 6-foot 1 inch in old money. Their jump and reaction times, not to mention their wingspan, means they can cover almost every inch of the goal. However, when faced with a low shot a GK doesn’t dive down, they dive out and to the side or they drop their legs and gravity pulls them down.
So, a low shot can negate height and jumping ability. Therefore, it makes sense that 61% of all open play goals scored entered the goal in the bottom third. Back to our penalty analysis, and goals from this dead ball scenario go in the bottom third 57% of the time.
Coaching is full of old clichés and a favourite of shooting pracites is to ‘hit the bottom corners’. This (just about) holds true, with bottom left (24%) and bottom right (21%) the most popular destinations for the ball. Closely followed by bottom centre at 16%. Interestingly, the other 6 areas of the goal have a pretty even spread of 7% and 8%.
Erling Haaland, the best and most ruthless finisher in world football currently, hit the bottom third of the goal with 60% of all of his PL goals.
Be alive to rebounds and regains
This statistic is remarkable because it was exactly the same across all 3 seasons. In 21/22 there were 860 open play goals. In 22/23 there were 880. In 23/24 there were 998. Every single one of these seasons 22% of open play goals did not have an assist.
Last season I measured the total length of goal scoring attacks (average 13.5 seconds) and the total amount of passes in goal scoring attacks (average 4). As you’d guess, the most frequent length of attack was less than 1 second, just enough time to get a first time shot off. And the most frequent quantity of passes was 0.
Following in for rebounds, or sweaty goals, is vital. If we’re coaching finishers to be in between the posts, prepared to finish off minimal touches and time and to aim low when they do so, we have to be coaching other players to be following in for the rebounds.
Alisson Becker has averaged a save percentage of 76% over his club career, whilst Ederson has 72%. The best GKs and the worst GKs will make plenty of saves, so being alert to the rebound is an absolute must. Especially when the most consistent statistic of the last 3 years was that 22% of goals have had no assist.
A final thought…
There’s a reason that most goal of the season compilations won’t include a one touch instep finish from a rebound that is scored inside the 6-yard box and goes low in the goal. Nor do they include 14 second, 4 pass combinations and a finish from a cross. They are common. They occur too frequently.
What they do include is screamers from outside the box, with 7 opposition players between the finisher and the goal or a run and dribble that twists and turns before a chipped finish into the top corner. We cherish the things that we do not see often, the rarer something is the more it is celebrated.
My point is this:
All of these goals are scored and all of them are valuable.
None of the information above should lead us towards rules and laws for goalscoring that we embed into our players. However, the above information has happened for 3 seasons. It cannot just be a seasonal flourish. The sample size is too large, and the numbers are too consistent.
We as coaches need to know the facts of goalscoring and we should ensure we design training scenarios that recreate what actually occurs in the game.
We can then ask our players: Do you want to be a great goalscorer? Or a scorer of great goals?
Whatever their answer, it’s a great answer.
Comment (1)
Tony Mee
Great piece. Probably hasn’t changed all that much over the years and should be the basis of most practice design on this topic.