Premier League without set-piece goals: Arsenal still first?

We've been writing about it since October, and you hear about it every weekend now, but it still bears repeating: this season, the Premier League fundamentally changed -- almost overnight.

While it's perhaps comforting to view the rise of set plays as part of the tactical ebb-and-flow that defines the history of a dynamic sport with barely any rules, this feels quite different. At this point in the previous two seasons in the Premier League, teams had combined for 798 and 737 goals from open play and the penalty spot. That's an average of about 768 goals through 31 matches.

This season? That number is down to 615 -- a 20% decrease. If we just compare it to last season, it's a 23% decrease. That's not an ebb, nor a flow -- it's a tidal wave.

Amidst such a tectonic tactical shift, Arsenal are fitting champions-to-be. They recognized the true value of set-piece goals before almost anyone else, and they're riding their all-time-great dominance on that end of the field to what's likely to be their first title in over 20 years. The Gunners have scored 21 goals from set plays and conceded just eight -- the margin of plus-13 is more than twice that of second-best Manchester United's set-play differential of plus-six.

So, with the Premier League title race nearly wrapped up, I'd like you to follow me on a journey through an alternate reality, back into the past, and all the way up through the present. What if, I don't know, some human-soccer-obsessed being from another planet got sick of all the long throw-ins and the meat walls? Let's say this oddly specific lifeform was not only a huge fan of the high-intensity, score-at-all-costs managerial tendencies of someone like Hansi Flick but also able to occupy and control a non-linear conception of the passage of time. And so, this being snapped its fingers/tentacles/hooves/disembodied-matter and suddenly erased all set-piece goals from existence.

What would this Premier League season have looked like without set plays? And what might we have to look forward to? To find out, I went through this season and removed all goals from free kicks, corner kicks, and throw-ins from the statistical record -- and then went back and calculated how it would've changed the result of every Premier League match from this season.

Let's see what both the Premier League table and the story of this season look like when no set piece goals had ever been scored.

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The first five weeks: Liverpool look likely to repeat

The massive summer spending spree at Anfield looks like it's paying off for Liverpool. The defending champs have a three-point lead atop the table, and they've scored the most goals of any team in the league.

After a back-and-forth emotional opening day win against Bournemouth, Liverpool looked like the team we all remembered from the season prior when they destroyed Newcastle, 3-0, at St. James's Park. Their only hiccup over the first five games was a scoreless draw, at home against Arsenal.

But this is what happens when Arsenal play: they tie. Commentators have begun to wonder if Mikel Arteta has become his generation's Jose Mourinho -- a manager capable of instituting a style that eliminates losses but can't generate enough wins to ever capture a league title.

Through five matches, after their own massive spending spree, the Gunners have conceded only one goal, and they've scored five, but that low-event style has led to two wins and three draws. They're in sixth -- four points back of first place.

The Premier League top five:

1st: Liverpool: 13 points, plus-7 goal differential
2nd: Tottenham: 10 points, plus-5 GD
3rd: Chelsea: 10 points, plus-2 GD
4th: Sunderland: 10 points, plus-2 GD
5th: Bournemouth: 10 points, plus-1 GD

Biggest beneficiaries of the set-piece-free world: Chelsea, Sunderland, Brighton, and Burnley all have two more points

Biggest loser: Everton have two fewer points

Weeks 6 through 10: Manchester City are back

After revamping at least half the roster over the past two transfer windows, Manchester City finally look like they might be back to their best. Their plus-14 goal differential is by far tops in the league.

After losing two of their first three to Brighton and Tottenham, they've gone undefeated over the next seven matches, with five wins and two draws -- away at Arsenal and at Aston Villa. They're only one point back of the leaders Liverpool.

Although they lost their first game of the season, to a last-minute Estêvão winner at Stamford Bridge, Liverpool survived a tough, up-and-down match to win 1-0 at Crystal Palace, and they gritted their teeth through a 1-1 draw with Manchester United at Anfield and a 2-2 stalemate with Brentford in London.

Liverpool's schedule is about to ease up, with away matches at Newcastle and Chelsea already in the books, plus home games against Arsenal and Manchester United and tricky games against midtable upstarts Bournemouth, Palace, and Brentford out of the way. But first, they travel to the Etihad for a top of the table clash with Man City.

Arsenal have risen up to fourth, three points back of Liverpool, and they've still only conceded a solitary goal through 10 matches. This might be the best defensive team we've ever seen, and they're the only undefeated team left in England's top flight. Unfortunately, they've only scored eight goals -- the fifth-fewest in the league.

The Premier League top five:

1st: Liverpool: 21 points, plus-9 GD
2nd: Manchester City: 20 points, plus-14 GD
3rd: Tottenham: 19 points, plus-5 GD
4th Arsenal: 18 points, plus-7 GD
5th: Chelsea: 18 points, plus-3 GD

Biggest beneficiaries: Liverpool, West Ham, and Nottingham Forest all have three more points

Biggest losers: Arsenal have seven fewer points

Weeks 11 through 15: Don't write off Arsenal yet

Are the wheels starting to fall off at Anfield? Liverpool played Real Madrid to a scoreless draw at home in the Champions League, and then went another 45 minutes without a goal from either side against Manchester City.

This was supposed to be a free-flowing, effervescent attack with all of the talent added over the summer, but some observers have started to wonder whether or not Liverpool manager Arne Slot was riding the good vibes of the Jurgen Klopp era in his first season with the club. Can his version of Liverpool generate the same attacking threat as his predecessor's did?

City eventually won the match, 2-0, on a pair of long-range screamers from Nico Gonzalez and Jérémy Doku. More sanguine analysts suggest that one-in-100 goals from players who rarely score goals is more bad luck than anything -- but then Liverpool lose, 1-0, at home to Nottingham Forest in their next match.

Liverpool have now gone three full games without scoring a goal. They eventually get back on track -- and back to being themselves -- with a thrilling 3-2 win over Leeds at Elland Road, but we're 15 games into the season and Premier League record signing Alexander Isak is yet to score a single goal.

Arsenal extended their unbeaten run through 14 matches and actually started winning games, including a tricky 2-1 win on the road to Sunderland and a 1-0 away win over Chelsea that ended up being one of the most boring matches of the season after Moisés Caicedo was sent off in the 38th minute. They eventually reached the top of the table -- only to drop back down to second after a 2-1 loss to their old friend Unai Emery and Aston Villa.

Outside of a 1-0 loss at Newcastle, Man City have been near-pristine since their early season struggles, something that cannot be said about their neighbors over at Old Trafford. Man United have just 21 points through 15 matches, and they're in the bottom half of the table for the second year in a row under Ruben Amorim.

After a 1-0 loss to Crystal Palace, a nascent, heretical-sounding idea begins to emerge among some former players and current television personalities, that the Glazer family should take back control of the club from Jim Ratcliffe.

The Premier League top five:

1st: Manchester City: 32 points, plus-20 GD
2nd: Arsenal: 30 points, plus-13 GD
3rd: Liverpool: 28 points, plus-8 GD
3rd: Chelsea: 25 points, plus-6 GD
T-5th:: Aston Villa and Crystal Palace: 25 points, plus-5 GD

Biggest beneficiaries: Burnley have six more points, Liverpool five

Biggest losers: Everton and Aston Villa have five fewer points

Weeks 16 through 20: It's a three-horse race

Normally, a 1-1 draw at home to Wolves, who have six points through 20 matches, is the kind of thing that dooms your title challenge. Follow that up with the same score line against Brighton at home two weeks later? And this is the point where we everyone starts wondering, again, if Arsenal have the mental fortitude to ever actually win a major trophy. But the Gunners responded with a decisive 3-1 win over Aston Villa, while City went on a run of three straight draws: away to Forest and Sunderland and home to Chelsea.

Liverpool, meanwhile, have won four of their past five. In their match against Fulham, Harrison Reed scored what might be the goal of the season -- a diving, swirling piledriver that was his first in nearly three years, with his first shot of the campaign -- but it quickly fades from memory. After all, it was only a consolation goal in the dying moments of a match Liverpool were already winning, 2-0.

Through 20 matches, there is a three-way tie for first place, and everyone braces for one of the most exciting title races in a long time.

A little further down the table, Crystal Palace are just two points back of the fifth and (likely) final Champions League place despite losing Eberechi Eze to Arsenal over the summer. Every club in the world wants to hire Oliver Glasner as manager, but he insists he's very happy in his current gig with Crystal Palace and won't even consider any questions about his future until after the season is over. His focus is on qualifying for the Champions League.

All of the recently promoted teams are hanging on for dear life: Sunderland are plummeting down the table, just four points clear of Leeds in 18th, while Burnley sit just one point clear of the relegation places in 17th.

The Premier League top five:

1st: Manchester City: 41 points, plus-26 GD
2nd: Arsenal: 41 points, plus-17 GD
3rd: Liverpool: 41 points, plus-14 GD
4th: Aston Villa: 37 points, plus-8 GD
5th: Chelsea: 33 points, plus-9 GD

Biggest beneficiaries: Burnley have eight more points, Liverpool and Bournemouth seven

Biggest losers: Arsenal and Sunderland have seven fewer points

Weeks 21 through 25: Two new managers at Chelsea and Man United; only two teams at the top

Chelsea owners Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital clearly wanted to get rid of Enzo Maresca right around the Bournemouth game after the turn of the calendar year -- but they couldn't do it after a decisive 2-0 win, nor after a 1-1 draw on the road with Manchester City. But they finally cut ties with their manager after a confused 2-0 defeat away to Fulham.

Despite frequent claims of the independence of the two BlueCo owned clubs, they brought in Liam Rosenior, the Strasbourg manager, to be the new Chelsea manager.

Rosenior speaks like someone who has read all of the wrong self-help books and videos emerge of him encouraging his players to treat the soccer ball as if it were a holy vessel containing the sum total of human knowledge. He also claims that his job as a manager is to age men. Man-ager ... get it? Everyone expects him to fail.

In his first four games in charge, Chelsea scored 11 goals and conceded just 1. The club is now only four points back of first place, and only one point back of third-place Liverpool, who have scored just three goals over their last five matches, the most recent of which was another uncompetitive 2-0 loss to Man City. But this time it was at home.

The conversation around Slot's suitability for the job has faded into the background and instead a consensus emerges around Liverpool: this is a good team that's not quite ready to challenge for a title.

At Man United, Amorim was replaced by Michael Carrick, who oversaw United victories against City and then Arsenal in his first two matches in charge. However, that's followed by a 2-2 draw against Fulham and then a bare-minimum 1-0 win over Tottenham, who had a player sent off in the 38th minute, haven't won a game since early December, and are now just five points clear of relegation.

Many people got swept up in the good vibes around Carrick's first two matches, but with United in ninth, it's clear that he's nothing more than a caretaker.

The Premier League top five:

1st: Manchester City: 49 points, plus-28 goal differential
2nd: Arsenal: 49 points, plus-20 GD
3rd: Liverpool: 46 points, plus-12 GD
4th: Chelsea: 45 points, plus-16 GD
5th: Aston Villa: 42 points, plus-7 GD

Biggest beneficiaries: Burnley have eight more points; Liverpool and Bournemouth seven; Crystal Palace six

Biggest losers: Everton have eight fewer points; Arsenal, Manchester United, and Sunderland seven

Weeks 26 through 31: You control your own destiny

At the bottom of the table, Burnley and West Ham are tied on 28th points, with the former in 18th thanks to a superior goal differential. Tottenham, unthinkably, are in 17th, but they still have a three-point cushion thanks to a last-second 1-0 win at Anfield two weeks ago. Perhaps new manager Igor Tudor has figured something out? Leeds, too, are only three points clear of the bottom three; they haven't scored a single goal over their last five matches.

Higher up, the addition of a fifth Champions League slot is doing wonders for the competitive texture of the league. As expected before the season, there is a clear top four: Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, and Chelsea are the only teams in the league with positive goal differentials in the double digits.

But after that? Well, there's only a two-point gap between fifth and eighth, and a five-point gap between fifth and 11th. Andoni Iraola is the favorite for whatever next big job opens up -- in England or elsewhere -- as his Bournemouth are in fifth place with seven matches to go despite losing 75% of their backline over the summer and their star forward, Antoine Semenyo, to Manchester City in January.

Some even viewed their most recent match with Manchester United as a "loser leaves town" type of deal. Carrick's United had risen up to fifth thanks to wins over fellow Champions League hopefuls Crystal Palace and Aston Villa. But Bournemouth's win over United catapulted the Cherries up to fifth, and it led many to believe that if Iraola can beat Manchester United with Bournemouth, then, well, he should be managing Manchester United.

With Palace now in eighth -- two back of Bournemouth, one back of Villa and United -- Glasner is struggling to hold it all together. The club is still in the hunt despite team captain, Marc Guéhi, leaving for City in January.

After a recent loss to Leeds, the manager started to scream into the microphone some vague accusations of needing support and the team lacking depth until a Palace employee whispered in his ear and pointed to a piece of paper sitting on the dais in front of him. Although Palace are in eighth place, they still have a game in hand to the three teams ahead of them in the table.

Chelsea are in third, Liverpool in fourth, and both their seasons have unfolded in a way that has somehow prevented the media from ever really reaching for hysterics to describe either team.

Chelsea are a young team with a young manager, while Liverpool's attack has been hampered by Isak breaking his leg earlier in the season against Tottenham and Mohamed Salah, who just announced he'd be leaving the club after the season, finally hitting the age cliff. Both teams will be in the Champions League next season, and both teams are expected to be much better next season.

At the top, City have 61 points through 30 games. They bullied the two upstart midtable clubs, Bournemouth and Palace, into letting go of their best players in the middle of the season. And if they win out, they will win the league.

Their rivals, Arsenal, have conceded an absurd 14 total goals, but the attack is no longer painfully grinding its way to scoring, at best, one goal per game. They've scored 40 times this season, as many as Chelsea and three more than Liverpool. Only City have scored more goals (53).

The Gunners have a two-point lead atop the table, but they've also played one more match than City. If they win out, they, too, will win the league.

City's next three matches are at home to Liverpool in the FA Cup, away to Chelsea in the league, and then Arsenal come to the Emirates on April 19th. If it's possible for a table-based league to have a championship match, then this will be it.

The Premier League top five:

1st: Arsenal: 63 points, plus-26 GD
2nd: Manchester City: 61 points, plus-34 GD
3rd: Chelsea: 53 points, plus-16 GD
4th: Liverpool: 52 points, plus-11 GD
5th: Bournemouth: 48 points, plus-2 GD

Biggest beneficiaries: Burnley have eight more points; Palace seven; Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest six

Biggest losers: Everton have nine fewer points; United and Villa eight; Arsenal seven

And then there are the teams in second, 10th, and 20th: Manchester City, Brighton, and Wolves would have the exact same number of points, even if set pieces didn't exist.