In the years 1977 to 1981, the top flight of the Football League averaged 28.8 of their games as drawn, and scored 2.6 goals per game.
In the last five years, the Premiership has averaged 26% of their games drawn, and scored 2.56 goals per game.
The importance of 1977 to 1981? Those were the last five years before the change awarding three points for a win. And if you look at the numbers without the aberrant 2006 season, with only 77 drawn games (21 fewer than any of the other last five seasons), the averages come much closer to equal.
So we see that, over time, adding points for a win does nothing for the quality of the games. Just as many, or even fewer goals, just as many draws, essentially.
The only way to increase scoring is to change the rules of the game in a way that will hinder defensive play. This is difficult to do: the changes liberalising the offside rule (circa 1994) have obviously had little effect over time in English football. Probably, it would take a radicalization of either the rules on fouling, or some form of eliminating or restricting the effect of the offside rule. No one really wants that.
Discordia, you are very American sounding in your complaints. You decry defensive play, you want to see more effort by teams at scoring goals. This is what has ruined American sports in general. Basketball, especially professional basketball is now nothing but an offensive showcase, little more than a dunking highlight reel. Baseball’s scores are up, as a result of which teams simply load up on players who can hit home runs and ignore staples like stealing bases. Even American football has lost something not easy to quantify, with scoring fests taking away much of the tenseness of the game. I hope very earnestly that soccer never manages to fall into the “more goals is better” trap.
Today, Manchester United and Everton played to a 1 - 0 result. The game ended up hinging on an ill-advised attempt by an Everton player to reach back and give one last little impeding flick at the heels of the onrushing Jamie Carrick. I am certain that both the United supporters and the Everton supporters were on the edges of their seats the whole second half, even though the game was hardly an open, end-to-end, free-flowing contest. Same during the first half, during the first 30 minutes of which, Everton were essentially camped in their own half, playing soak-up-the-attack.
If you can’t find that sort of game enjoyable, my suggestion is that football simply isn’t for you. Try watching American football. Oh, wait: they ALWAYS have 11 behind the ball. <snicker>
Awesome goal by RVP.
