SET-PIECES. Set-pieces. Set-pieces.
Flick through any newspaper to the sports column, scroll through the timeline on X (or Twitter if you’re old school) or listen to any football podcast and you’ll invariably see the importance of set-pieces being discussed at length. Whether it be a focus on the likes of Arsenal using them to their strengths or the news that Wolves have recently parted ways with their set-piece coach due to their recent failings on the pitch, it feels as though the focus on set-pieces has ramped up considerably in the last couple of seasons.
That must mean we are witnessing a higher percentage of set-piece goals than ever then, right? Wrong.
This season, open play is king.
So far this season, there has been 201 goals scored in the Premier League, with 153 of those coming from open play situations, meaning a whopping 76.1% of the goals scored this term have been scored this way – the highest percentage on record in the competition.
| Season | Goals | Open | % of Goals from Open Play |
| 2025 | 201 | 153 | 76.1% |
| 2018 | 1018 | 740 | 72.7% |
| 2024 | 1246 | 903 | 72.5% |
| 2001 | 992 | 716 | 72.2% |
| 1996 | 988 | 711 | 72.0% |
The data doesn’t indicate that this season is an anomaly either, although the jump from last season (2023/24 – 72.5%) to this season’s 76.1% is quite a sizeable one, the overall trend points towards a greater emphasis on goals coming from open play and less so on set-piece situations, with both of the last two seasons (including this one) appearing in the top three for highest percentage of goals from open play.
In the most recent Premier League matchday (MD7), the percentage of goals from open player was even higher than the season average, with 25 of the 31 goals coming from open play situations – a staggering 81%.
If we look at the seasons with the fewest percentage of goals coming from open play in the Premier League, it’s mostly the late 2000s and early 2010s with the lowest proportion scored from open play, with the 2009/10 season seeing just 63.3% of its goals come that way. Interestingly, of the top five seasons with the lowest percentage of goals from open play, not one has been within the last decade.
| Season | Goals | Open | % of Goals from Open Play |
| 2009/10 | 1053 | 667 | 63.3% |
| 2010/11 | 1063 | 694 | 65.3% |
| 2006/07 | 931 | 620 | 66.6% |
| 2008/09 | 942 | 631 | 67.0% |
| 2007/08 | 1002 | 672 | 67.1% |
If we look at the set-piece goal numbers themselves (excluding penalties), we can see that this season just 19.4% of the goals scored have come from set-piece situations, which is the second-lowest in a Premier League campaign, with the trend again being that set-piece percentages on overall goals are dwindling as we head into the early 2020s and into the present day.
| Season | % of Set-Piece goals (Excl. Pens) |
| 2020/21 | 19.2% |
| 2024/25 | 19.4% |
| 2023/24 | 19.8% |
| 2022/23 | 21.3% |
| 2021/22 | 21.7% |
So if open play goals truly are king this season, which team is the king of open play goals I hear you ask? Well wonder no further!
| Premier League 24/25 | Open Play Goals | Total Goals | % of Goals from Open Play |
| Fulham | 9 | 10 | 90% |
| Wolverhampton Wanderers | 8 | 9 | 89% |
| Bournemouth | 7 | 8 | 88% |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 12 | 14 | 86% |
| Liverpool | 11 | 13 | 85% |
Marco Silva’s Fulham are the team with the highest percentage of their goals coming from open play this season in the Premier League with a huge 90%, with nine of their 10 Premier League goals coming from open play (also 1 penalty) and all 10 of their goals coming from inside the box.
An interesting and perhaps slightly unrelated quirk is that Fulham are also the only team in the Premier League to have scored multiple goals following a 20+ pass move, with goals from Rodrigo Muniz vs Manchester City (24 passes) and Adama Traoré v Ipswich Town (23 passes) sitting at fourth and fifth respectively in the list of longest passing sequences leading to a goal in the Premier League this season.
In terms of overall goals from open play, Premier League’s top scorers Manchester City unsurprisingly sit top of the pile with 14 of those 17 goals coming from open play situations. I have also made the very pleasing observation that six of City’s 14 goals from open play this season have been scored from outside of the box, including each of their last two goals in the competition. The only explanation for their recent penchant for whacking one in from distance is that the City players over the last couple of weeks must have been listening to Bloc Party, Hard-Fi and pretty much any other band who featured on a mid-2000s FIFA game, as well as watching hours upon hours’ worth of #Barclaysmen compilations in an effort to emulate the likes of Matty Taylor and Thomas Hitzlsperger on the weekend, at least that’s how Man City prepare in my head.
| Premier League 24/25 | Open Play Goals |
| Manchester City | 14 |
| Chelsea | 13 |
| Tottenham Hotspur | 12 |
| Liverpool | 11 |
| Arsenal | 11 |
Thanks for reading!
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