Goals per game is football's favourite stat.
Everyone quotes goals per game as if it totally defines a football season goal tally. But does it really? There's far more going on than this one neat little number can explain…
…and yet hardly anyone stops to question it.
Goals per game is convenient. Goals Per Game is easy to digest. And because most people don't dig any deeper than surface level, goals per game has become the go-to stat when people talk about how many goals were scored in a season.
But here's the issue.
When used in isolation, goals per game isn't that helpful. It tells you how many goals were scored on average per match. But not where they came from, when they were scored or even who they were scored against.
If you really want to understand how well a team performed in terms of scoring and conceding goals, goals per game is a good place to start. But you can't stop there.
Time to dig into exactly why that's the case.
What you're about to learn:
- Why goals per game has become football's favourite stat
- The issue with raw goal tallies
- How xG hasn't solved this problem
- What you should be looking at instead
Why Goals Per Game Has Become Football's Favourite Stat
Goals have been and always will be the lifeblood of football. They win you matches. They lose you matches. They get you fired. They clinch titles.
Against this backdrop, it makes total sense why goals per game has become the go-to stat when discussing football season goal tallies.
A single number that tells you how many goals were scored on average per match is exactly what most people want. Football season goal tallies don't have to be complicated. Right?
Wrong.
Take the Premier League for example. The 2024-25 season witnessed an average of 2.93 goals per game, the second-highest ever recorded in the league's history. Cue riots in the street with fans celebrating the "return of the dying art" that is attacking football.
Except…
There's no way of telling how or why those goals were scored just by looking at the overall football season goal tally.
Higher-scoring seasons can be the product of two things. Both teams are getting better at attacking football. Or teams have simply gotten worse at defending.
A lofty goals per game total doesn't distinguish between the two.
The Issue With Raw Goal Tallies
Raw goal tallies are deceptive.
On paper they look great. And because they're expressed as a simple number, they're easy to understand and compare between seasons.
But that doesn't mean they paint a truthful picture of how many goals were scored during a football season.
Think about it. If a team averages 2.0 goals per game over the course of an entire season, that sounds pretty decent on the face of it. What fans don't see are the caveats that come with a broad brush stat like this.
Goals per game doesn't specify:
- If the goals came from open play, set pieces or penalties
- If the goals were scored in the first five minutes or the 95th
- If the goals were scored against bottom-half teams or top-six teams
You could luck into a high goals-per-game average by scoring silly goals against weaker teams. But that doesn't mean you're going to score against better teams when it matters.
It's true across all leagues. According to a global study of close to 29,000 matches, the worldwide average is 2.71 goals per match. That'll seem low to Premier League fans. But here's the kicker…
That average fluctuates massively between leagues. And even from month to month within a season.
If you're wondering why any of that matters. Here's why.
How xG Hasn't Solved This Problem
Remember when Expected Goals (xG) was going to revolutionise how football is analysed?
By accounting for shot difficulty, xG was meant to solve the problem of counting every goal scored the same. After all, a goal from a tight angle from 30 yards out isn't the same as a tap in from six yards.
Or so everyone thought.
xG has come a long way since its invention. But it isn't perfect by any means. A weakness of the xG model is that it assumes every player is of equal ability.
A presentational shot chance with a mere 0.10 xG still has a better than 10% chance of being scored by …well, an average player. But football doesn't get played by average players. So what are the chances that shot gets scored by someone like Lionel Messi or Mohamed Salah?
Likewise, when a team rattles off 20 shots from outside the box to give them 0.60 xG on the season, pundits will talk up how unlucky they are not to have scored.
But did anyone see those 20 shots? Were they blocked efforts? Headers from ridiculous positions? No one cares. Because "their number didn't bounce".
It's a weak argument. And here's why that matters.
xG still treats every player as if they're average. When applied to a football season goal tally, some players will always get lucky. Other players will seem unlucky by the numbers.
Neither reflects the truth.
xG isn't perfect. And although it does a better job than just tallying up raw goals, it still falls short of telling the whole story.
What You Should Be Looking At Instead
So if all of the above is suggesting goals per game and xG are worthless… That would be wrong.
Both have their place in understanding how a football season played out from a goal scoring perspective. But neither gives you the full picture when used in isolation.
If you really want to understand a team's performance over a football season when it comes to goals scored and goals conceded, you have to dig into multiple statistics and understand the context around them.
Here's what you should be looking for:
- Quantity vs quality – you know the saying. Too many chefs in the kitchen. The same can be applied to shots on goal. There's nothing better than a team that limits their efforts but picks their moments. You won't outscore a team who relentlessly create high-quality chances.
- When did the goals occur – did your team score consistently across the season? Or did they hammer a team in one game and then draw a blank in the next? Goal scoring (and conceding) consistency is crucial.
- Who were the goals against – like it or not, not all opponents are created equal. Goals scored against struggling teams don't mean a team can do the same against elite sides.
- Context, context, context – a high-scoring season where a team also concedes plenty of goals isn't as impressive as the average fan thinks. Same goes for teams who constantly find themselves a goal down but manage to battle back. Dig deeper than the surface level stats.
Wrapping Up
Goals per game is popular for a reason. Average goals scored per match is a straightforward stat that lets fans know at a glance how good a season was from a goal-scoring perspective.
But it rarely tells the full story.
If you really want to understand how a team performed over the course of a football season, begin with goals per game. Then dig into how and why those goals were scored.
Divide those goals into goals from open play, set pieces and penalties. Graph them out to see when they were scored. Compare how that team did against top-half teams versus bottom-half teams.
There's a reason most people don't do this. It's more work. But when you're looking for the truth, don't you think it's worth it?