Premier League data and tactics roundtable: Expected outliers, set-piece invention and will the goal-rate stay high?

The 2024-25 Premier League begins today (Friday) at Old Trafford when Manchester United take on Fulham.

It is the first of 380 league games between now and the final round of fixtures in late May and, based on last season’s numbers, we can expect to see around 1,100 goals, 8,000 fouls, 10,000 shots and 360,000 passes in the English top flight over the next nine months.

A quarter of the 20 Premier League sides have a new manager or head coach, several new set-piece routines have already been spotted during the warm-up friendlies, and there are dozens of new signings ready to get off to a dazzling/nightmare start as the matches start to matter.

With excitement building and plenty of subtleties to consider, The Athletic convened a roundtable of its data and tactics experts to discuss what may lie ahead.

Whose 2023-24 numbers point to a big season in 2024-25? 

Ahmed Walid: Alexander Isak scored 16 non-penalty goals in the Premier League last season from a non-penalty expected goals (xG) number of 15.7 for a Newcastle United side that endured a turbulent time around New Year and injuries affecting the team throughout their campaign. No European commitments for them this time, hopefully fewer injuries and the return of £55million ($70.8m at the current exchange rate) summer 2023 signing Sandro Tonali in midfield from a 10-month ban for breaching rules on gambling might mean an improved Newcastle side. And Isak might be the biggest beneficiary of that.

Michael Cox: After a storming start to his Liverpool debut season, Dominik Szoboszlai ended on a surprisingly meagre return of just five Premier League goals and assists combined. The underlying numbers, though, suggest he should have roughly doubled that total. With a new coaching regime perhaps giving him a more prominent role, and after a year of getting to grips with the challenge of the Premier League after his move from Germany’s Bundesliga, we should expect a major improvement.

Mark Carey: Nicolas Jackson (if he stays at Chelsea). You can file Chelsea’s striker in the same category as fellow front man Darwin Nunez at Liverpool — a player whose physical attributes are strong but whose finishing needs a little sanding-down around the edges. Only Erling Haaland of champions Manchester City logged a higher non-penalty xG figure in the Premier League than Jackson’s 18.6 last season, the latter’s first in English football. The now 23-year-old still managed a respectable 14 league goals, but only Brennan Johnson of Tottenham Hotspur and Everton’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin underperformed their xG more than he did. If he can get a run of games among Chelsea’s swollen squad, statistical variance suggests Jackson is more likely to score at an expected rate this season.

Thom Harris: Surely Everton can’t be so poor in front of goal again? In each of his two seasons as manager, Sean Dyche’s side have been statistically the worst finishers in the Premier League, scoring around 15 (in 2022-23) and then 17 goals fewer than the quality of their chances would suggest they should have scored, excluding penalties. Such poor conversion rates have seen Everton finish second-bottom of the division’s scoring charts in both years and hover dangerously close to the relegation zone in the first of them.

While they have dipped into the transfer market to bring in £15million forward Iliman Ndiaye from France’s Marseille, improvements must start from within. Three seasons have passed since an Everton forward scored over 10 league goals in a single season, while the last player to do so, Calvert-Lewin, is desperately struggling for form amid persistent injury doubts. Any improvement over the past two seasons should start to see them looking up rather than down in what’s expected to be their final season at Goodison Park.

Which club do you think will adjust last season’s style/approach the most?

Cox: Leicester City stormed to the Championship title last season with a possession-based approach under Enzo Maresca. It proved very effective, but many of their fans seemed to find it rather dull. The appointment of Steve Cooper following Maresca’s departure to Chelsea means Leicester are now managed by someone whose previous Premier League experience, at their neighbours Nottingham Forest, was largely based around counter-attacking. Cooper is a pragmatist and his approach will probably be somewhere between those two styles, but it’s likely to be a departure from his predecessor’s tiki-taka.

Walid: A new head coach in Julen Lopetegui might see West Ham United move to a more proactive approach compared to the last couple of years under David Moyes. The additions of Maximilian Kilman and Jean-Clair Todibo in defence and Crysencio Summerville and Niclas Fullkrug to the forward line should help. Will it all be for the better? Only time will tell.

Carey: Chelsea are in a constant state of flux as they adapt to the demands of a new manager/head coach on a near-biannual basis. Maresca’s considered, possession-based style will see them try to build out slowly from the back and carefully work the ball through the thirds. There have been teething problems with this in pre-season, but Maresca has shown from his year with Leicester that he is unwilling to compromise his principles. Strap yourselves in for this one, as it will be interesting either way.

Can Enzo Maresca reshape Chelsea successfully? (Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)

Harris: We didn’t need any more evidence that Arne Slot is plotting a tactical revolution at Liverpool, but their pursuit of Martin Zubimendi provided it. Targeting a defensive midfielder known for his composure and press resistance, who is happy to be the first receiver in build-up, only outlines further the Dutchman’s intent to introduce a possession-based system to a side who have played “heavy-metal” football for almost a decade before.

Predecessor Jurgen Klopp probably wouldn’t have instructed his players to “kill the opposition with passes” either, but Slot is a famous proponent of moving the ball intricately through the thirds, illustrated best by his rampant Feyenoord side in 2022-23, who completed more sequences of 10 or more passes than everyone but Ajax on their way to a first Eredivisie title in six years. Things could take a while to settle, but this is an exciting change.

Who might be the biggest xG outliers this season?

Cox: By its very nature this is difficult to predict, but it’s notable that Aston Villa were 11 goals better off than their xG numbers would suggest last time, which is quite a large difference. But that makes sense: their two best players are their goalkeeper, Emiliano Martinez, who is good at keeping the ball out of the net, and their striker, Ollie Watkins, who is good at putting the ball in the net. So perhaps they’ll repeat that.

Carey: I have a feeling that Forest will underperform in front of goal this season, largely because their counter-attacking style is predicated on low-volume (albeit high-quality) chances. When you play this way, you have to ensure the chances you do have are taken. While Forest do have good attacking players, you could argue there is no one (perhaps aside from Chris Wood) with that clinical eye for goal. Forest are yet to score above their xG number across their two seasons back in the Premier League — and I cannot see that changing.

(Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)

Will the Premier League’s goals-per-game rate stay above 3.0? 

Cox: Yes. It will come down, but 3.28 last season was very high — I don’t see that it will drop below 3.0.

Walid: If the league maintains its transitional nature for another season and the gap in player quality between the promoted sides and the rest is still there, then it won’t be a surprise if it stays over three.

Carey: Last season felt like a freak in terms of goals per game and the gap between the league’s best and worst teams was wider than usual. It is less fun for the neutral, but I would expect to see that rate drop just below three per game.

The most misused metric in 2024-25 will be…

Carey: A striker’s number of touches per game. It has been happening for years, but people take low-volume touches to mean a striker is not doing their job, ignoring the fact they might be stretching the play with their runs in-behind or standing between the centre-backs to pin the opposition defensive line deeper. Of course, you want your striker to score goals, but they can still influence the game in multiple ways without necessarily touching the ball. Using event data to assess their output can often be a blunt tool.

Harris: Lists of stats from a single game. It’s not insightful, or particularly helpful, to know Player X completed 100 per cent of his crosses if he only attempted one of them. Individual performances need so much context — game-state, tactics, fatigue, whatever it may be — that numbers alone often don’t give the full story. Some words as well, please.

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How hopeful are the fans of all 20 Premier League clubs feeling about their 2024-25 chances?

Team you’re most excited to watch in 2024-25

Walid: For different reasons, I am going with Villa. First, I am interested to see how they adjust in midfield after the departure of Douglas Luiz this summer and the arrivals of Amadou Onana, Ross Barkley and Enzo Barrenechea. Another reason for my choice is seeing how the other clubs adapt to Villa’s high offside line and try to find solutions against it. Or, on the other hand, how manager Unai Emery develops his team to be one step ahead.

Carey: I’m excited to see what 31-year-old new head coach Fabian Hurzeler has to offer with a potentially exciting Brighton side. Hurzeler does share similar principles to predecessor Roberto De Zerbi in terms of controlled circulation from the back — albeit from a different base in a 3-4-3 — so fans should not expect a complete tactical overhaul. The return of Kaoru Mitoma after injury and the signing of Yankuba Minteh could make things a lot of fun in wide areas.

Harris: Only three teams in the top four divisions of English football — Notts County, MK Dons and Swindon Town, all in League Two — saw more goals in their games than Southampton did last season, while no side have been promoted to the First Division/Premier League with a worse defensive record in 34 years. If they continue to play the expansive, risk-fraught football that got them back up at the first attempt — as manager Russell Martin has suggested they will — then the division’s biggest sides will be licking their lips. We will see some slick football from Southampton — their 2-3-5 formation in build-up is adventurous and thrives on quick combinations and craft — but they weren’t safe from a thrashing in the Championship last season and certainly won’t be a level higher.

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Premier League strongest starting XIs and set-piece takers for 2024-25 season

The most inventive set pieces will come from…

Walid: Arsenal. It might not look flashy — or maybe it will — but the neatness and effectiveness of their routines will definitely stand out. Opponents will try to find defensive solutions against their dead-ball moves, which might persuade set-piece coach Nicolas Jover and the team to get inventive. There’s a reason Arsenal have the best goals-per-100-set-pieces record (5.7) in the Premier League since 2021.

Cox: Everton. Whether you consider theirs ‘inventive’ is questionable, but they are the only Premier League side to go ‘all in’ whenever they get a free kick even vaguely close to the halfway line, throwing both centre-backs forward and getting goalkeeper Jordan Pickford to launch the ball long. They transform situations where other sides would play a short pass across the defence into an immediate attacking threat.

Everton manager Dyche (Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images)

Carey: Liverpool. For any fan who is looking for clues on Slot’s tactical approach, their pre-season corner routines have been something to behold. The action starts with eight or nine players having what looks like a mothers’ meeting at the far post on the edge of the area before suddenly darting towards their designated positions. It looks quirky, innovative and confusing — the perfect blend to cause chaos for opponents this season. Liverpool have recently published a research paper with Google DeepMind on optimising corner-kick routines and they look to be taking things seriously this season.

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Premier League preview: Our writers predict what will happen in 2024-25

Predict a trend that may develop in 2024-25

Walid: The transitional nature of the Premier League last season might see a couple of teams focusing more on this phase of play, offensively and defensively. Due to its randomness — you can win/lose the ball in different parts of the pitch, with players in different positions — it’s hard to create specific patterns of play in transition compared to a build-up phase, for example. However, principles and guidelines could be introduced by coaches to aid their players in transitional moments and offer them collective solutions when applicable.

Cox: Around 90 per cent of penalties were scored last season, a fairly huge jump from the 75 per cent rate the previous year. That seems unsustainable. I’ll predict more penalties will be saved this time and also that goalkeepers, rattled by their apparent inability to save them in 2023-24, will try more ‘antics’ to put off the takers.

I also expect more managers to be sacked. Only three lost their jobs last season, the lowest number for over a decade, and historically there’s a link between the performance of the promoted sides and the number of changes. Since last season’s trio all went back down, existing Premier League clubs didn’t feel overly threatened and kept faith with their man. I think the three teams coming up this time will perform better and therefore more bottom-half clubs will seek change when they are threatened by relegation.

Carey: On the topic of set pieces, I think we will see a reduction in goals from corners and wide free kicks. Think about it, there are more set-piece coaches than ever and they work on defensive and offensive sequences from dead-ball situations. I think we will see more teams cancel each other out in these areas, with a higher threshold for scoring a goal given the sharpened focus on this facet of the game.

GO DEEPER

Answering a tactical question about all 20 teams in the 2024-25 Premier League

(Top photo: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)