Premier League data preview: Penalty fear, box midfields and the decline of the screamer

The curtain is about to be raised on a brand new season.

The Fantasy Premier League squads have been picked, the simulations have been run, and the predictions have been calculated.

No one will truly be able to accurately forecast the drama that will unfold in 2023-24, but to reliably predict the future we must look at the past.

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There have been some interesting data and tactical trends spotted from last season — including the rise of counter-attacking in the Premier League — but what other signals can we extract from the noise?

Allow The Athletic to walk you through some quirks to look out for ahead of the Premier League’s opening weekend.

Okay, we’ll start with a pretty obvious one.

There is never a good time to commit a foul or handle the ball in the penalty area, but it is valuable to highlight just how truly “not worth it” such actions are.

As The Athletic has previously analysed, a penalty is a wholly disproportionate punishment for the action that precedes it. In the Premier League last season, a penalty had a 79 per cent likelihood of resulting in a goal — or an xG value of 0.79 for us data enthusiasts. 

To highlight just how lucrative those opportunities are, only 66 of the 9,525 non-penalty Premier League shots had a higher xG value than a penalty last season. That’s just 0.69 per cent of all shots that were taken in open-play in 2022-23.

Put simply, there is a strong likelihood that the dribbly winger who faces up your centre-back is not going to work it into a better area than if he were to be brought down and able to take an unchallenged shot at goal from 12 yards.

So there really is no need to dangle that leg and make an unnecessary tackle.

Of course, we are now living in a