The Premier League has seen a flurry of goals over the last five weeks, throwing up some thrilling matches but is that the whole story?
The Premier League seems to have sparked into life over the last couple of weeks, with high scoring matches being produced more regularly.
Last week we've seen Arsenal and Tottenham both hit five past their opposition and a seven-goal thriller between Bournemouth and Liverpool. Last week was the incredible 5-4 match between Swansea and Crystal Palace and the week before that we saw Tottenham beat West Ham 3-2.
Over the last five weeks, there has been a marked increase in the amount of scores being scored, with 3.2 goals per game, as opposed to 2.7 goals per game in the 9 games previous to that. The question is though; is that a general trend or is it being skewed by a few teams?
With defending seemingly getting worse, it seems that the gap between the teams at the top and teams at the bottom is growing. Liverpool have beaten Watford 6-1, Crystal Palace 4-2 and lost to Bournemouth 4-3 in that period. They are certainly one team that could have skewed the amount of goals recently.
Another team that has been involved in a lot of goals is Crystal Palace, who haven't been involved in a match with under three goals scored in that period.
West Brom are surprisingly in the top eight of the league and perhaps more surprisingly, in matches they have been involved in, they have been averaging more than three goals per game.
| Week | Total Goals | Goals per Game |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 28 | 2.8 |
| 11 | 36 | 3.6 |
| 12 | 24 | 2.4 |
| 13 | 31 | 3.1 |
| 14 | 36 | 3.6 |
| Average 10-14 | 32 | 3.2 |
| Average 1-9 | 27 | 2.7 |
| Average 1-14 | 29 | 2.9 |
| Total Goals | Goals per Game | |
|---|---|---|
| Matches between the top 5 & bottom 5 | 69 | 3.5 |
| Matches involving the top 5 | 199 | 3.2 |
| Matches not involving the top 5 | 205 | 2.7 |
Taking a look at the 20 matches between the current top five and current bottom five so far this season, we can see that the average goals per game (3.5) is far higher than the overall average this season (2.9). The gap between top and bottom certainly seems to be widening, with the attacking talent of the top teams putting the bottom teams' defences to the sword.
In general, matches involving the current top five clubs have seen more goals than matches not involving those teams, which is what you would expect to some extent. The fact that those matches, on average, produce 0.5 goals per game more than matches without the top five again shows the discrepancy between the amount of goals scored and the quality of football when comparing the top teams and the rest of the league.
It would seem that other than the odd exception, such as Swansea winning 5-4 against Crystal Palace, generally there are significantly less goals in most Premier League matches that don't involve the top teams. If we take goals as a measure of excitement, the top teams do seem to be skewing the increase in the amount of goals recently and that goes more than some way to understanding why they are favoured for live televised matches.
