In truth, 2023/24 was not a campaign for defending.
The Premier League enjoyed a record-setting season in terms of goalscoring. With a month of the season remaining, teams across the division had surpassed the 2022/23 record total for goals, set at 1,071. By the end, 1,246 goals had been scored at a staggering rate of 3.28 per game.
There are many factors for this exponential increase which can be explained in greater detail than Diego Simeone’s rationale, which he put forward last November, that “nobody defends” in the English top-flight. The Premier League certainly boasts defenders who aim to stop the opposition from scoring (we think Sheffield United tried to do so anyway), they just didn’t do it very well in 2023/24.
Riskier defensive strategies, prolonged added time, and elite quality in forward areas are all contributors for the Premier League’s defensive demise, although there were a couple of collective standouts.
Here were the Premier League’s best defences in 2023/24 based on how many goals they conceded.
All data collected from Opta
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