The English Premier League leads in goals among all leagues and the league itself is seeing record-high goals each year this season the league has already surpassed its mark from last season.

Experts point to many reasons and one expert at Kent State University, Curtis Good teaches a course called Global Sport which mainly focuses on the Premier League and its success, and he sees three main reasons. The first reason is because of the implementation of the Video Assistant Referee system otherwise known as VAR. This was implemented in the 2019-20 season. This system was created to assist on-field referees in making accurate decisions during the games. The VAR team consists of a VAR official, who is usually a former or current referee, three assistants, and a video replay operator. VAR monitors the game and is in constant contact with the main match referee in case a wrong decision is made during play. The VAR can only intervene in and stop play if there is a clear and obvious error or a serious missed incident might have occurred.  These reviewable incidents include checking goals for offsides, checking for penalties in the box, and reviewing if serious fouls are enough to give a direct red card and ejection.

 This adoption of the VAR has brought with it more stoppages in play which in soccer the amount of time play is stopped for will get added on at the end of each half. This added time in previous years would usually be one to three minutes, but now fans can expect 5 to 10 minutes sometimes each half because of how much more play is stopped now.

Results show fans are unhappy with this addition as it stops play and stops a lot of momentum teams thrive on, the data though, says more teams are scoring even more since VAR was introduced. These stops in play allow teams to make changes as simple as getting a water break or if a team wants to change personnel.

Substitutions is another change Good points to the increase in goal scoring. Ever since the Covid season in 2020, the Premier League has now allowed teams to have five subs throughout a game. Good points to just a perfect example of how this changes the game and how it directly increases the scoring. “You know a team might be bringing on a top striker with just 10 minutes to go who’s got completely fresh legs. That’s going to change the goal-scoring extensively.” he said.

“That’s going to change the goal-scoring extensively.”

Curtis Good, Masters in Sport Management and Administration

The ability to have more subs allows teams and adds another layer of gameplay and strategy and almost forces coaches to play two separate games and prepare for a lot more than usual.

The final reason Good points to is on the more tactical side as teams want to play attacking football and are being pushed to by owners and supporters. In soccer, it works similarly to the NHL in a points system and not just wins and losses. Teams get three points for a win, one point for a draw, and zero for a loss. Teams in the past if they knew they were playing against a tough team would try their best to play very defensively and their objective would not be to score but to not allow a goal. Good says, “Now and more and more those teams are saying we’re going to lose so we might as well try to score and you know, if we lose five two, we lose five two but it’s more interesting to watch and we’re more active as opposed to just sitting back and owners and supporters are more apt to want that attacking style football.” This offensive strategy can lead to problems for the team defensively which can create back-and-forth affair viewers are seeing more of. The data backs up everything that Good mentions. The Premier League goal totals have seen a gradual increase in the past three seasons from 1,077 in 2022 to now with 44 games left in the season the Premier League goal total sits at 1,098 goals.

This idea of playing more attacking is noticeable in a few teams, Good mentions clubs like Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspurs who are top five in the league this season in scoring but also allowing goals at a high rate. Tottenham and Liverpool FC are more notable clubs that use their defending full-backs to join in the center of the field and play more attacking than the expected norm for the usual defensive position.

Tottenham’s manager Ange Postecoglu does this because his team prefers to play through the middle and it helps him create a man advantage in the midfield and attacking areas. In an interview with The National in Wales, Postecoglu says he does this in part because he believes his players can bring more to the table than just defending. “Both Pedro and Destiny, when they have the ball and they’re running with it, they’re really difficult to stop. It’s an essential area and it makes it more effective.” This change in play is not only influencing the Premier League in England but the Kent State Soccer team has also been able to adopt similar attacking tactics to give them success in their fall 2023 season.  The Kent State Women’s soccer team finished their season losing in the MAC championship to the Western Michigan Broncos but in this campaign, the Flashes scored 32 goals which was third in the conference and 14 more than they scored the season before.

Newly promoted associate head coach Rocky Sasitharan explains how he also notices the trend of what he calls a more position-less sport. “a fullback, you know, 25 years ago was strictly like, getting up and down the line maybe at most as an attacking fullback. But you know, very levelheaded defensively, you know, etc. Now you’re seeing inversions from the fullback position, right, where they slot into the middle of the field.” Sasitharan and the Flashes have implemented a similar tactic from Tottenham and the Premier League and have started to use their fullbacks a similar way by bringing their right back, Junior Kelsey Salopek into the midfield.

“We invert, Kelsey’s a right back and we invert her to create a double pivot in front of our back three, we slide three, the rest of the back four into a three and we go into a three-two shape.”

Sasitharan goes on to say what makes Salopek a good fit and why she is the right person for this tactic. “I think Kelsey is a special player like you have to have the right athlete to be able to do that because she has to be able to recover quick enough.”

“I think Kelsey is a special player like you have to have the right athlete to be able to do that because she has to be able to recover quick enough.”

Rocky Sasitharan, Associate Head Coach

“When we do lose possession, we also have to be technical enough to play in the middle, it actually like affects our recruiting, because we probably would play like that henceforth, and we’re recruiting fullbacks now, like, it’s not just a player that can receive the ball out wide, it has to be somebody that kind of has some ability to play in the middle.”

Salopek who earned First Team All-Mac honors in 2023 says this strategy is something not many teams are ready for and made them effective and entertaining this past season.

“I think it makes it more like free flowing too cause like, everyone’s going everywhere and the ball is moving better. The pace of the play is faster.”

“The pace of the play is faster.”

Junior Kelsey Salopek, Kent State Right Back

This change of play for Salopek is a little familiar for her as she started in the midfield her freshman and only started this role of being an inverted full-back this season. “That’s where I played all growing up. So, I was comfortable there. And then at the beginning of last year, he told me, I was playing right back and kind of played there a little bit in the spring. And then he like introduced inverting to me. And I think playing in the midfield before, like, I helped a lot, because it was already what I was used to.” This role seemed like the perfect fit for Salopek and the Flashes and was a catalyst for their season as not many teams knew how to counter this tactic. With this growth of the game and knowledge coming from anywhere for Sasitharan and his, team they are always willing to learn and adopt other strategies.

As the game continues to evolve more and more coaching innovations will continue to shape the sport putting attacking at the forefront.