The current crop of attacking players at Patrick Vieira’s disposal are arguably the best, or at least most exciting, the club has had since promotion back in 2013. Blessed with the exciting youth of Olise and Eze, a Wilfried Zaha who had his best goalscoring season last year and the French duo of Mateta and Edouard, Palace had their best goalscoring season with 60 goals across all competitions last season.

However, a slightly deeper look at the stats shows a glaring issue – when the front four are not firing, help at the opposition end of the pitch is lacking. In the league this season, Joachim Andersen’s goal against Man City is the only goal scored by a player not playing in an attacking role. This is a stark contrast to previous seasons, but something that has been a consistent theme during Vieira’s reign.

The stats below show the distribution of goals amongst Defence, Midfield and Attackers since promotion in all competitions – with a few caveats. 

Goals were attributed to where players played the majority of the season – for example recognising that Eze has sometimes played as a 3 in midfield but here is primarily as an Attacker, Kouyate’s season as a Centre Back under Hodgson and recognising Puncheon’s move from one of the front 3 or 4 to a midfield 3.

There are probably an infinite number of reasons, rationales, statistics, opinions, wrong opinions and ideas on why these numbers are the way they are, and we are only half way through the season so if you are reading this in May, it could be a very different story. Here are my three thoughts on why we are here with these stats at this point in the season.

Centre Back Threat at Set Pieces

Most notable in recent years is the lack of a goal scoring threat from the back. Whilst they’ve arguably never possessed the ability on the ball as the current crop at the back, Palace have always found goals from their centre halves, notably Scott Dann (is a goal machine) who netted 16 goals for the club and ranks joint 10^th in PL goals for the club, alongside Andros Townsend and Jeff Schlupp. Current back up James Tomkins has more PL goals for Palace than everyone in the current squad excluding Zaha, Schlupp, Ayew and Milivojevic and ties Edouard with nine Palace PL goals. It is not just having an aerial threat that the club appear to be missing, but the nouse to prod and nod home goals more frequently than they are now, something we have seen from Tomkins (vs Everton) do in the league more recently than the established pairing. Palace currently possess some quality set piece exponents and it is not unreasonable to hope, or expect, the big men at the back to utlise these deliveries into the box better in the second half of the season.

Lack of Full Back Threat

Palace’s contingent of full-backs won’t go down in the annals of Palace history as the club’s most attacking threat, amassing a grand total of zero goals whilst Vieira has been in charge of the club. In fact, the only goal we have scored from someone playing full back was from Jairo Riedewald against Stoke in the cup, with a strike from a corner, and most would argue he is a midfielder that was filling in at the time. Tyrick Mitchell is the only full back (and defender) to register an assist this season, which is also indicative that the position group are not finding themselves consistently in dangerous attacking positions. In fact, it’s not so much the barnstorming overlaps as to just being in the right position at crucial moments (Ward away at Chelsea ‘15/Mitchell at home to Villa ’21) that has resulted in the downturn in goalscoring production. Whilst I am not advocating the return of an over-attacking, Van Aanholt type player, full backs that can provide a more credible support and threat to attacking play is likely to remain at the top of the club’s shopping list.

Goals from the centre of the park

The one goal scored by a centre midfielder this season was by, yes you guessed it, Luka Milivojevic’s penalty against Oxford in the Carabao Cup. In the league, the threat has been virtually non-existent and arguably the biggest drop off from last season (Yes this is a reference to Conor Gallagher) and seasons previous. You can view Eze as one of a midfield three which clearly changes the stats, but doesn’t really change the issue – the core centre of midfield doesn’t look like scoring a goal.

There are obviously issues at large with midfield make-up and balance, but at the heart of many of Palace’s results in our Premier League tenure has been grinding out a game by a single goal or nicking a point thanks to goals scored from a McArthur/Ledley/Cabaye/Milivojevic type player. Jeff Schlupp has demonstrated his goal scoring prowess in flashes in the last few seasons, but whoever has the role of partnering Cheick Doucoure in the heart of Palace’s midfield for the remainder of the season is going to be relied on to contribute more than the current meagre return. It can only get better right?

There is no magic wand, premium solution or single entity here that will fix this but with Palace going 9 games this season in all competitions without scoring, goal support from the rest of the pitch will be vital to ensure that number does not grow.