Football tends to be a low-scoring sport. Using the Premier League and its previous results as an example, you’re 2% more likely to witness a 0-0 draw (8% of fixtures have ended goalless) than see a game with six or more goals (6%). However, February was different.

There were 42 games played, and 14% featured six or more goals – and not one ended goalless. It was the most Premier League games played in one month, with no ending goalless since October 1994 (56). Eight players born in that month have since played in the competition, and none of them drew 0-0 on their debuts – presumably through sheer dedication to the month of their birth.

February 2024 also saw the best goals per game in a single month in the history of the Premier League, an average of 3.8 goals per game. In fact, it was the best in a month in the English top flight since way back in December 1960, when a whopping 275 goals were scored in 66 matches (4.2 per game). Incredibly, eight hat-tricks were scored that month, including five goals in a game by the great Jimmy Greaves for Chelsea in a 7-1 win over West Brom.

Although February was the standout month, this has been a theme of the entire season. 834 goals have been scored in total, and the current goals-per-game figure of 3.23 is comfortably the best in Premier League history; you have to go back to before England won the World Cup to find a season with a higher average (3.34 in the 1964-65 campaign). Only eight games have ended goalless, the lowest percentage (3.1%) in a top-flight season since the 1931-32 season (2.4%). Rather unexpectedly, two of those 0-0s have involved Brighton and Hove Albion, whose dedication to goals was such that they had a run of 20 consecutive Premier League matches in which they both scored and conceded between May and December 2023, a competition record (pleasingly, after those consecutive 0-0s, Brighton’s last five games have had 19 goals in them. Back to what they do best).

So, what is the data telling us about why there are more goals now than 15 years ago when the 2008-09 season had a goal per game of 2.48?

Shoot! But from closer to the goal.

It stands to reason that the closer you are to the goal, the better your chance of scoring. We all love a long-range goal like the ones Tony Yeboah scored, but it’s worth pointing out that only three of his 24 Premier League goals were from distance; it just so happens that two of them are iconic (at home to Liverpool, away at Wimbledon) and stay long in the memory. Over time, it has been accepted that shooting from outside the box only lowers your chances of finding the net.

Between 2003-04 and 2016-17, a Premier League campaign didn’t see more than 60% of shots taken from inside the box. Since 2017-18, every season has been done, with this season’s being the highest Opta has on record (67.3% shots from inside the box). That has led to an increase in overall shot conversions – it hasn’t dipped under 11% in any of the last seven seasons, whereas it never hit 11% in any season from 2003 to 2017.

Using 2006-07 as an example, the lowest-scoring Premier League season on record of 2.45 goals per game (indeed, the third lowest in top-flight history), over 20% of goals were scored from outside the box, leading to an overall shot conversion of 9.3%, the second lowest on record. Compare that to 2023-24: only 11% of goals have come from outside the box, and the conversion rate is up at 11.9%, the highest on record. Get closer to the goal and have a better chance of scoring.

Big wins… or heavy defeats, depending on your angle.

Even with over 100 games of the Premier League season still to play, there have already been 12 victories by five or more goals, four more than in the entirety of last season. In fact, only 2009-10 (14) and 2011-12 (13) have seen more wins by 5+ goals in a full Premier League season. Arsenal have dished out four of those wins while, less happily for them, Sheffield United have been on the receiving end of five of them, the joint most in a season along with Derby County in 2007-08 (it’s never good to be compared with that team). With 6% of the wins this season coming via 5+ goals, it’s the highest percentage in a Premier League season ever.

Sorry to mention Sheffield United’s woes again, but undoubtedly, having a team as porous as they have been helping the goals per game quota (their current tally of goals conceded is the most by a top-flight side at this stage since Ipswich in 1963-64). One of their five defeats by five or more goals was suffered at the hands of Newcastle United, who hammered them 8-0 in September at Bramall Lane, in what was only the fifth-ever eight-goal away victory in top-flight history. Indeed, Newcastle have been living up to the tag of ‘entertainers’, their nickname during their spell under Kevin Keegan in the 1990s. Their games overall have seen 3.8 goals per game, the second-most of any side in a season in Premier League history behind Liverpool’s 2013-14 side that came so close to winning the league.

Should the current 2023-24 Premier League goals per game ratio continue at the same rate, it would break the all-time seasonal record of 1,222 goals in 1992-93, and there were 82 extra games that season. Long may the goals keep going in.