The Premier League season of 2016/17 didn’t see a new goal record set in the top flight of football on Sunday, however the final day got extremely close.
Thursday evenings clash between Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur produced a thrilling seven goal return for fans in attendance (although probably not that thrilling for Leicester fans) and Harry Kane’s late stoppage time strike was the 1,027th goal of the 2016/17 campaign.
We needed a further 40 goals in Sunday’s final day fixtures and with Tottenham Hotspur scoring seven, and Chelsea and Manchester City hitting five a piece, the final day ended with a total of 37 being scored around the country.
Ending the season with a total of 1,064 goals, the campaign closed only two goals shy of the 2011/12 record of 1,066 and that’s not a bad return for efforts across the season.
If the season so far average of 2.80 goals per game had been maintained the final day would’ve seen 28 goals, but as often happens on the final day there’s more goals for your ticket price and this year was no different on that front.
Depending on which side you follow and what your goal difference across the campaign was though, some will have got more enjoyment out of those goals than others.
|
Season
|
Goals
|
Avg Per Game
|
|
2011/12
|
1,066
|
2.81
|
|
2016/17
|
1,064
|
2.80
|
|
2010/11
|
1,063
|
2.80
|
|
2012/13
|
||
|
1999/00
|
1,060
|
2.79
|
|
2009/10
|
1,053
|
2.77
|
|
2013/14
|
1,052
|
2.77
|
|
2015/16
|
1,026
|
2.70
|
The Premier League itself pointed out that final day fixtures historically produce more goals anyway that the previous 37 match weeks as in 15 of the last 16 seasons, the curtain closing fixtures average 4.5 strikes across the final games
