Premier League Scoring Is at All-Time High: Bad Defenders or Something Else?

In they went, one after another, all 29 of them in a matter of hours: Three at the Liberty, four at the Emirates, five at Vicarage Road, five at Turf Moor, six at the KCOM and another half-dozen at the King Power. Bang, crash, wallop, roar, gasp and roar again. Then breathe, if you could. 

If you experienced last Saturday in the Premier League, it won't surprise you that goals are on the rise in England's raucous top division. As every home team on the day managed at least three, as Leicester City grabbed that many for themselves in 20 minutes, as Crystal Palace did what Crystal Palace now do, the Premier League set itself a new record: Never before, said Opta, had a day with six games or fewer produced so many goals. 

In other seasons, such an afternoon might have been something of a freak event, but in the current one this type of scoring is a theme. Now 160 games in, the Premier League has already seen 455 goals, which works out to 2.84 per game. At this pace, we're on track for the highest-scoring season since the Premier League became a 20-team affair in 1995-96. 

Naturally, it's the current top three leading the way. Liverpool are up almost a full goal per game in comparison to last season, and Chelsea and Arsenal aren't far behind them in that respect.

Jurgen Klopp's men (2.50 goals per game) are currently on pace for 95 goals, Chelsea (2.13) are on track for 81 and Arsenal (2.31) are headed for 88. Only once each this century have the Reds and Blues gone at a better clip than they are now, while for Arsenal the 88 they're headed for would represent their most prolific season in front of goal in Arsene Wenger's two-decade tenure. 

But it's not only them. Before the recent midweek round commenced, 12 teams had reached 20 goals or more after 15 games, which hadn't happened since the turn of the century. Those 12 included all of the top 10, and behind them, Palace are one of the highest-scoring bottom-half teams in history. If only they could defend, eh? If only anyone could defend. 

The Premier League's surge in scoring has been thrilling but has also given rise to questions as to what's behind it. Is it about defenders or an absence of them, and if so where have all the good ones gone? Is it about the way players are being developed? Is it about changes in the interpretation of rules? Does it have its roots in tactical evolution? 

The natural tendency is to make this a character-driven inquisition, and it's always this that makes the most noise. After Manchester City had seemingly stepped out onto the pitch at the King Power Stadium last weekend having had their minds wiped by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, forgetting what it is that Leicester City do, the fury centred on a select few rather than them all.

John Stones copped it heavily. Claudio Bravo, Bacary Sagna and Pablo Zabaleta felt it too. And of course, Pep Guardiola took more of it than anyone. "[If Guardiola was English] he'd have been slaughtered," said Harry Redknapp, per BT Sport, ever the voice of the man on the street, neglecting to notice that Guardiola was, in fact, getting slaughtered. 

Much of criticism of the Catalan stems from an identity clash, a head-butting between what he represents and how those in England perceive themselves. But there's also a more simple element to it, too: City have only recorded three clean sheets in 16 league games, and they're not alone. 

Liverpool have only four clean sheets. Klopp's men are the most devastating side in the league up front but are on track for another porous season at the back. Their late implosion against Bournemouth was a striking example, and after it the character-based assessments again made the most noise: The absent Joel Matip's stock soared; the same couldn't be said for Loris Karius. 

"It's tough to win the league without a good goalkeeper. It is tough," said Gary Neville of Karius on Sky Sports (h/t the Daily Mail). "He's not good enough that goalkeeper."

Karius has since become embroiled in a war of words with Neville, his brother Phil and also Jamie Carragher. Such is Gary's distaste for shaky defenders, it wouldn't surprise you if he blamed the German keeper for everything from Liverpool's clean-sheet record to the nose-diving of the British pound. 

There is validity in such a focus on individuals. Many have pointed out that the Premier League not so long ago had the likes of Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Carragher and Sol Campbell leading the way at the back. Now when it comes to the best of the homegrown bunch, it's Stones and Gary Cahill.

But one of the issues with the rapid pace of football's coverage, with its agenda often set by the immediacy of the punditry world, is that nuances or undercurrents don't have the time to be explored. And there are some here.

It's intriguing to ponder whether the Premier League doesn't just have a shallow defensive crop but whether it has completely moved on from the time of Ferdinands, Terrys, Carraghers and Campbells.

Last year, Wenger spoke of the way he saw European football moving away from specialists. He spoke of academies with "nice pitches" producing "good technical players" but ones lacking other characteristics: physicality, nous and the ability to solve problems.

The Arsenal boss was speaking specifically of the absence of European-born strikers—most of the elite ones are South American—but perhaps the same thing applies to centre-backs. 

"What I am convinced of is that in the academies we have to specialise the players," Wenger said, per the Guardian. "Maybe you have to work with specificity of a position again. Maybe we have to rethink completely the education and specialise earlier."

The more you watch the Premier League, the more you're inclined to agree. And yet, what if such specialists are out there but we can't see it? Are there league-wide forces imposing a struggle on all defenders? Even if your Ferdinands, Terrys, Carraghers and Campbells were around now, would they look the same as they once did? 

More than anything else this season, it's the sharp increase in the extent of pressing that is impacting the nature of the Premier League. Klopp's Liverpool are the most obvious example. Guardiola's City employ a similarly high-up stance. So do Mauricio Pochettino's Spurs, and even Wenger at Arsenal has been dragged along by the wave of pressing. 

Pressing is nothing new, of course, but perhaps never before has it been this widely used in England. By nature, it's a high-risk, high-reward method: Win possession high up, and you're attacking a defence that isn't set; fail to do so, and you're looking at two-on-twos or three-on-threes at the other end. "There are a lot of risks in how we play," City's Kevin De Bruyne told the Daily Mail. "We know that."

Teams across the league, then, are essentially backing their press to be better than their opponents'. Or, if you like, backing themselves to win a shootout because the odds of doing so are good. "I much prefer to win 5-4 than 1-0," the great Johan Cruyff once said, and Cruyff is relevant here. 

The Dutchman is a key figure in the history of pressing, and Guardiola is his chief disciple. Wenger is another. For others, such as Pochettino, Marcelo Bielsa's principles are those that guide them, but the common theme among so many is pressing. 

In this age of supreme athletes, sophisticated sports science and a changing production line, the result of such an approach is helter-skelter football, with buzzing attacks charging at under-siege defences—defences with an aggressive mindset, wanting to give their own forwards a chance to do the same. The character-driven assessments are important too, but individual shortcomings feel as though they're more a part of an encompassing movement. 

Goals are flying in at a record pace. Right now, the Premier League reminds of the quote from the American journalist Hunter S. Thompson: "Faster, faster, faster, until the thrill of speed overcomes the fear of death."