Premier League is suffering from cultural shift towards boringness – and stats prove Arne Slot is right

Football has been the long-standing source of excitement, drama and passion for millions of fans across the globe.

The Premier League in particular is considered to be the cream of the crop but this season, there’s a sense that it’s taken a negative turn.

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Whilst the controversy of VAR remains a focal point when discussing the modern game, there has been an absence of flair and trickery.

Nowadays, the preferred approach is direct, especially when set-pieces, throw-ins and corners are more popular in chance creation.

Mazy runs, quick passing moves and individual quality may start to be a thing of the past amid the ‘boring’ trend of set play dominance.

This may have stemmed from the physicality of the Premier League, but an onus on winning set-pieces seems to have caught on abroad.

And the manner in which some players achieve this has left Liverpool boss Arne Slot concerned with the future of the game.

“We see it incredibly often that opponents come here to Anfield just to lie on the ground,” he said after their 4-0 Champions League win over Galatasaray, during which he was agitated at the regular pauses.

“I also watched the match against Juventus back, and in the first half, the Galatasaray players were on the ground fourteen times. That means the game is stopped every three minutes, so there is never any rhythm.”

Slot added: “I felt it was important, not because I was stressed, to show that we couldn’t let this happen.

“I just wanted to create something. To let everyone know that we need to protect football. It’s not nice that football is heading in this direction.

“So I tried to make that clear in words and gestures, that this is very upsetting for football. That is also why I am glad that we didn’t let ourselves get carried away.”

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Counter-attacks remain strong amid rise in set piece reliance

Galatasaray won 15 fouls against Liverpool, who will join Arsenal as the only two English sides in Champions League quarter-finals.

Chelsea, Manchester City, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur all suffered heavy defeats with a collective 28 goals conceded.

All four were undone by counter-attacks across two legs, especially a Newcastle side who were hit for seven on one night at Barcelona.

Joining Barca in downing the English giants were Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid, who played front foot football.

Arsenal may well be the outlier amongst all of them, given they have been branded as ‘boring’ and ‘so dull’ throughout the season.

Whilst these could be considered as strong arguments, the statistics in the Premier League as a whole do not make for exciting reading.

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Is the Premier League becoming boring?

Data provided to talkSPORT.com by Opta has certainly made the case for the Premier League becoming tedious to watch a lot stronger.

Across the 301 matches that have been played this season, goals are averaging at 2.7 per game, a 0.2 decline from the previous campaign.

Goals scored from set pieces have seen a big rise, with the total now sitting at 0.96 per game compared to 0.79 in 2024/25.

Premier League statistics (average per game)

The total number of long throws has more than doubled from 1.5 per game to 3.9.

Direct attacks have also dipped from 3.5 per game to 2.8, whilst the average number of passes has dropped from 893.4 to 876.5.

Last season, the ball was in play for an average of 57.1 per cent of each match – so far this season, it’s at 55.3 per cent.

Arsenal have been criticised for seemingly playing a big role in what is a supposed decline in the quality of Premier League football.

A reliance in winning set-pieces causes more breaks in play, disrupting the rhythm of matches when paying fans want to see excitement.

With the quadruple still on, Arsenal players, staff and fans won’t care how they win matches and, to be quite frank, why should they?

But, as we saw in the Champions League last 16, this shift in style by Premier League sides saw them struggle against traditional methods.

Will managers take a punt and revert back to the exciting, attacking football that helped countless people fall in love with the sport?

Or, is there just so much jeopardy in the modern era that the best way to get results is to play a safe, almost robotic, style of the game?