One of the big talking points coming out of the Premier League fixtures at the weekend is the amount of goals that have been scored in the league so far this season....some writers and pundits have been attributing the shift to the quality of the strikers now plying their trade in the league whilst others have blamed it on poor defending...so now its time for my take on it.
There can be no argument with some of the statistics, after the first ten rounds of matches we've averaged 2.97 goals per game, this is the highest rate we've seen in the Premier League, you could argue that this has been skewed somewhat by the regular cricket scores which have cropped up this season...the 8-2's, 6-0's, 6-1's and 5-3's...but these have been frighteningly regular, are we seeing a shift in emphasis from the managers? Andre Villas-Boas has gone on record stating that he simply wants to outscore the opposition.
At half-time of the Chelsea vs Arsenal game on Saturday Gary Neville was genuinely angry and appalled by the frankly shocking defending being exhibited by both sides (I would call it schoolboy defending, but even schoolboys are better than this), after all these are for the most part international defenders making basic, basic errors. Even John Terry is no longer looking like the man mountain he used to be, and as pointed out by Alan Hansen, it used to be the case that you could play anyone next to JT and it'd be fine, but now you have to make sure that its a quality defender alongside him to help out...what he then stopped short of saying was the David Luiz is not, and will never be the right man for that job (as good as his scissor kicks are, the boy is pony at defending...and penalties). It does on occasion seem like the basic art of defending has been forgotten by the top pro's, simple things like marking and tackling seem to be beyond some, there are exceptions Steven Taylor and Fabio Coloccini have been outstanding for Newcastle and Ledley King is always a rock at the back (when he's fit).
But on the other hand, maybe its just that when they make a mistake the strikers on show are more talented and nine times out of ten they will punish you for the mistake...Sergio Aguero has undeniably been different class, Super Mario has equally been as good when he's not setting off fireworks in his bathroom and Wayne Rooney has found his form again (a little piece of me can't help but thinking it may be the hair).
Both of these are valid explanations for the increase in goals this season...but maybe its a bit more to do with a culture change within the league itself, maybe the public have become so drunk on watching Barcelona and Real Madrid playing their open attacking brand of football that the managers and players are starting to open up a bit. Maybe the need to entertain has over taken the need to keep a clean sheet, and the need to keep the fans coming through the gates to see free flowing football is more important than basic defending as a team.
If any of these explanations were to hold true, then we can't really just look at the Premier League results. One way of analysing how English clubs are performing is to compare the performances of the English teams in the Champions League over the first four group games this season compared to last. So far this season the English teams have scored 27 goals and conceded a miserly 10 across the combined 16 games played by the four teams. At this stage last season the four English teams had scored 44 goals and conceded 14 across the combined 16 games...hmmm, so defending is getting worse, strikers are getting better, but in Europe, English teams have scored less and conceded less...
I'm sure you've all made up your own mind about why there have been so many goals this season, all I know is I'm confused, but I am enjoying it...however, I would like to see some good old fashioned defending find its way back into the league, crunching tackles, towering headers, positioning and no-nonsense defending....BANG.
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