Goals are plentiful in the Premier League but standards at the back and the state of the offside law offer cause for concern
The Premier League is awash with goals. How North Sea fishermen must envy those bulging nets. In football EU quotas do not apply to goals. Not yet, anyway.
Last weekend another 39 were scored in the top division and on Wednesday Blackpool put five past Leeds United at Elland Road in the Championship. Clearly the condition is contagious.
Not so long ago Sepp Blatter's lively imagination envisaged enlarging the goals to make scoring easier. Now he can concentrate on making the bungs in Fifa smaller, safe in the knowledge that in England at least the art of beating goalkeepers continues to thrive.
Just so long as it does not get out of hand, to the point where goals become a drug on the market. Cheap goals cheapen the game. The quality of a league is as much about the efficiency of the defenders as the ingenuity of the attackers. Goals should generally be difficult to score, not given away like luncheon vouchers.
Arsenal's fourth goal at Chelsea last weekend, scored by Robin van Persie after John Terry had lost his footing and left the Dutchman all on his own to round Petr Cech and tap the ball into the net, was a priceless piece of slapstick but Tottenham Hotspur's third against Queens Park Rangers, the slick exchange of passes between Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon before Bale sent a glorious shot past Paddy Kenny, was what the Premier League should be about.
To be entertaining, a game of football needs to promise goals rather than deliver them with every other move. Tuesday's scoreless Champions League encounter between Arsenal and Marseille at the Emirates was let down by poor finishing but did not suffer through a lack of ambition. The sway of attack and counterattack held the attention throughout. Goalless draws do not have to be bore draws.
The increase in the number of goals scored in the first 99 games in the Premier League, 295 compared to 256 at a similar stage last season, is largely down to Manchester City having increased their total after 10 games from 13 to 36. City have also let in two fewer, eight against 10. Roberto Mancini's side are achieving the classical championship-winning formula of combining generosity in attack with parsimony in defence. David Silva may as well be proclaimed Footballer of the Year now. Below City, however, a lot of goals are conceded rather too easily for the competition's wellbeing.
Defending properly at free-kicks and corners is becoming a lost art. Teams are forgetting to place guards at the posts and even if they do the sentry is apt to wander off to have a fag. While the in-form Van Persie's hat-trick eventually did for Chelsea in Arsenal's 5-3 win, the slow reactions of Per Mertesacker, the despairing German giant in the middle of Ars�ne Wenger's defence, could have cost them the game.
The increasing use of the full-backs to give teams pace in wide positions and support the lone striker is a positive development but it invites trouble if the attacking back is not covered. The relaxation of the way the offside law is interpreted means that defences can no longer push out at set pieces, confident that any opposition stragglers will automatically be pulled up if the ball is played back in again.
Franz Beckenbauer would have the game return to the old system of flagging down almost anyone in an offside position. That would be regressive, although the number of goals being allowed when one or two players apart from the scorer have advanced beyond the last defender, and must be distracting the opposition's attention, could be said to contradict the original purpose of offside, which was to discourage goalhanging.
After the old law was changed in 1925, reducing the number of players required to keep an attacker onside from three to two, the ensuing tidal wave of goals was followed by a far greater emphasis on defence. Arsenal's first period of prolonged success, under Herbert Chapman, owed much to their defensive qualities although they still scored an abundance of goals.
Certainly Wenger's side, whose goal difference remains in deficit despite their five at Stamford Bridge, could do with another period of austerity at the back. Even now, Tony Adams's right arm must have an occasional attack of the Dr Strangeloves.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2011/nov/04/goals-premier-league-defence
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