Goals galore: chaos returns to the Premier League
The Premier League is fast, loose and full of goals again.
Goals per game have risen from 2.75 last season to 2.82 in the opening weeks of 2026-27, according to analysis published on 21 September 2026 The Guardian. It is early. But the direction is clear. End-to-end football is back.
What makes this stand out is what usually happens next. In four of the past five seasons, scoring has jumped by at least 0.21 goals per game across the final 330 matches compared with the first 50. If that pattern holds, 2026-27 will finish as the second highest-scoring season of the Premier League era.
The players are running harder to make it happen. Every club is averaging more distance covered per match than last season. Liverpool sit bottom of that running table, yet even their total is ahead of any club’s final figure from 2025-26.
Counters are back too. Last season the league averaged 1.75 fast-break shots per game, shots from rapid counter-attacks, the fewest among Europe’s big five leagues. This season that figure is 2.08, which would have ranked second only to Germany’s Bundesliga last term The Guardian.
Chelsea lead the charge at 2.2 fast-break shots per game, with Bournemouth close behind on 1.6. Both sit in the league’s top five for counters. Newcastle, under Matthias Jaissle, are joint-seventh on 1.0 per game, a sign of how quickly new ideas have spread in a season that began with more new managers than ever before.
Then there is the shooting from distance. Brighton managed only six goals from outside the penalty box in the whole of last season. They are already just two short of that total. Lewis Dunk and Yasin Ayari both scored from beyond the 18-yard line at Coventry, and Brighton also went 2-0 up against Arsenal with goals from long range.
For fans, this means fewer grinding games and more wild ones. Set plays, free-kicks and corners, are creating less danger despite more attempts. Shots from set plays are up from 7.8 to 8.2 per match, but expected goals, a measure of chance quality, has fallen from 0.76 to 0.72. Set-piece goals have dropped from 0.71 to 0.56 per game The Guardian.
The scorelines tell the story. The 2-2 draw is the joint-most common result so far, seen six times. Manchester City leaned into the mayhem on 20 September, winning 5-3 to move three points clear at the top before a three-week international break Reuters. That followed champions Arsenal making it 12 points from 12 with a 2-0 win at Sunderland on 12 September Reuters.
Strap in. The cage is rattling.
