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LONDON (Reuters) – When Liverpool began defending their Premier League crown with a 4-3 win over promoted Leeds United last month, it opened the floodgates for an unprecedented flurry of goals in the opening weeks of the tournament. season.
In 38 games, the network has risen 144 times to an average of 3.79 per game, the most prolific four-week opening of a top-flight season in 60 years.
In the round of matches before the international break, Liverpool conceded seven for the first time since 1973 in a bizarre 7-2 rout at Aston Villa, hours after Tottenham Hotspur thrashed Manchester United 6-1 at Old Trafford.
Data company Gracenote Sports has been analyzing the numbers behind the excess goals and surprisingly found that fewer, not more, opportunities are being created.
Gracenote said there have been 22.6 shots per game, 1.5 fewer than in the first four rounds of last season and the lowest number in 10 years.
However, it is crucial that a goal is scored every six attempts compared to the usual nine or 10.
Logic suggests that either the quality of attacking players has improved or goalkeepers and defenses are inferior, the latter scenario supported by the fact that goalkeepers are saving 59% of goal attempts compared to 70% that they tend to keep out and there is less tackling.
While 23 goals came from penalties in the first four weeks, a record, said Simon Gleave, head of sports analysis at Nielsen’s Gracenote, who does not explain the increase.
“The current targeting rush is based on a surprising increase in opportunity conversion,” he said.
“Shots from across the field are being scored more often than expected. Defenders and goalkeepers are conceding more often than the data suggests they should.”
So is the fact that the matches are taking place in empty stadiums due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is it causing the wave of goals?
Matthew Shaw, a performance psychologist at London-based InnerDrive, says the bizarre game-day atmosphere could certainly be a factor in helping forwards be more clinical, allowing them to score with the freedom they show on training ground. .
“One reason things usually go better on the training ground than on the field is that there are fewer consequences on the practice field,” Shaw told Reuters.
“The fear of failure, missing an opportunity, for example when one against one with the goalkeeper, can make responses less automatic. With a crowd in the stadium, a player will be more aware of the repercussions of missing that opportunity.
MORE CLINICAL
“When people are under pressure, they tend to revert to worse old habits rather than being on automatic pilot, so maybe that’s one explanation for why players are being more clinical.”
Shaw says the finger shouldn’t necessarily be pointing at an inferior goalie.
“One of the weapons that a goalkeeper usually has is the pressure that a forward can feel,” he said.
“If I am a goalkeeper with a forward coming towards me, I want the forward to focus on as many things as possible, while a forward wants to focus on as few things as possible.
“In today’s environment, maybe it’s easier for the striker to focus on fewer things, to focus on the relevant signals like the goalkeeper, the goal, the back of the ball.”
Gracenote figures reveal that tackles per game have dropped from 34 last season in front of the crowd to 29.
“Perhaps without the additional motivational factor of the crowd effect, players are less likely to tackle tackles that are never going to win,” Andy Hill, a performance psychologist at the English Institute of Sport who works with Blackburn Rovers, told Reuters.
“Crowds can cause stress, anxiety and fear in players, but they can also energize, especially defenders who do not want verbal abuse from the crowd for not closing or allowing a goal to be scored,” he added.
“Take that away and it could mean they take their foot off the gas for a fraction and that can make the difference between reading a pass and missing it or not making a tackle.”
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, edited by Ed Osmond)
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