Goals are on the up in the Premier League. The average of 2.70 non-penalty goals per game in 2026-27 is higher than last season and two of the four previous campaigns. Yet we should have been even more royally entertained. Matches have averaged 2.88 non-penalty expected goals, the second most in the past six seasons. Chances have been going to waste.
If the 20 teams converted at the par rate, there would have been almost two extra goals per week. As few as that sounds, the proportion of games drawn is higher than in any past Premier League season. Some tied matches might have been settled had the finishing been up to the mark.
This is an issue across the Premier League. Fourteen clubs have scored fewer goals than expected, whether penalties are included or not, up from 10 last season. While there are eight teams that are within a goal of their underlying numbers and may see an immediate change of fortunes this weekend, the remaining 12 are split 8-4 towards the underachievers.
It is not just season-wide averages that are crumbling but week-by-week performances, too. There were 24 instances of a team scoring at least one goal fewer than their xG implied they should have across the first five match weeks, twice as many as occurred in the opening 50 games last season.
There are numerous possible explanations. Chance quality does not appear to be one of them, as the expected goals per non-penalty shot average only drops once more decimal places are applied than feels healthy.
At first glance, volume of touches in the penalty area has barely shifted either. A Premier League team is averaging 24.8 touches in the opposition box per game, down just 0.6 on last season.
The breakdown by team is more revealing. Four of last season’s top five are having fewer box touches per match, with Aston Villa and Liverpool having seen around a third disappear from their averages.
The one team from the quintet to increase is Manchester United, but they have only played one club that finished in the top 10 last season and five of their eight goals occurred against Championship runners-up Ipswich. A finely tuned attacking machine they are not. United top the Premier League for non-penalty shots, and are joint-second bottom for the average expected goal value.
They have not been helped by their top player for non-penalty xG: Bryan Mbeumo is one of 10 players who have scored at least one goal fewer than underlying numbers imply he should have. As he underachieved by 1.19 last season, this is not especially odd. The issue is how reliant United are upon the 27-year-old. This problem is not exclusive to this combination of club and player either.
The top player for expected goals at almost every Premier League club is having a bigger share of the xG pie than they enjoyed last season. This need not necessarily be a concern, as the figures will drop once playing time and chances are more equally shared within squads.
The most involved players themselves may help explain why goals are down, though. The top players from each club have collectively scored 6.8 non-penalty goals fewer than expected, almost 40% of the shortfall across the division from just 20 players.
Thierno Barry has been the player taking the chance for 49.4% of Everton’s non-penalty expected goals this season, up from 17.7% last term. It’s a massive increase in responsibility for a relatively young player – he has scored twice from chances valued at 3.5 xG.
Alexander Isak has seen a greater leap in share of team expected goals, though injuries meant he did not feature that often last season. There are seeds of growth for him at Liverpool, but he remains relatively new in terms of minutes played for the club. As with more than half of Premier League clubs, Isak is playing under a new man in the dugout.
Isak’s replacement at Newcastle, Yoanne Wissa, underperformed against xG by more than two goals last season, as did Marcus Tavernier at Bournemouth. They may not be the best players for their clubs to funnel their chances through. At least they are preferable to the situation at Tottenham, where centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke is their leading player for non-penalty expected goals.
Elsewhere, the players with the most xG for Fulham (Gonzalo GarcÃa) and Ipswich (Emersonn) are 22 years old and new to English football. Hull’s Oli McBurnie, meanwhile, has never scored more than six goals in a Premier League campaign. Erling Haaland remains a reliable presence in the xG-heavy frontman stakes, but the situation at Manchester City may affect his form.
Excessive reliance on players who can be forgiven for underperforming could prove to be a small-sample statistical quirk that is quickly remedied. Until it is, do not bank on the goal rate reaching the expected goal level in the Premier League.
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