New ball and xG question

Expected goals is soccer’s shot-quality model: it treats a 10-yard chance as safer than a 25-yard one, so teams have spent years cutting down on low-value shots from distance. In the Premier League this season, that trend held — but long-range goals did not disappear. (espn.com) Ryan O’Hanlon reported on April 21 that Premier League teams are taking 4.03 shots from outside the box per team per game, the lowest figure in Stats Perform’s database since 2008-09. Those shots account for 32.5% of attempts this season, down from 45.7% in 2008-09, while the average shot now comes from 15.4 meters instead of 18.3. (espn.com) Even with that drop in volume, O’Hanlon wrote that goals from outside the box are still arriving at 0.23 per team per game, right on the league’s 19-year average. He said that means a long-range shot this season has been more likely to become a goal than in every recorded season except one. (espn.com) One obvious change arrived before the season started: the Premier League switched from Nike to Puma for its official match ball after 25 years. The league and Puma announced on June 3, 2025 that the Orbita Ultimate PL would be used in 2025-26, with a 12-panel design and deeper seams intended to affect balance, durability and aerodynamics. (premierleague.com) Ball aerodynamics is just the way air pushes and pulls on a spinning ball in flight, like a baseball that suddenly dips or swerves. O’Hanlon’s piece said sports physicist John Eric Goff found the Puma ball could plausibly travel a bit farther before drag slows it, while also becoming less stable at certain speeds, a mix that can make hard shots from distance nastier for goalkeepers. (espn.com) That does not settle the case, because the shot map has changed too. O’Hanlon reported that teams may be taking fewer speculative efforts and leaving only cleaner long-range looks, while defenders are packing the penalty area more heavily and giving shooters different pockets of space outside it. (espn.com) The league’s own site was highlighting the pattern months earlier. In an Opta Analyst piece published by the Premier League on Dec. 3, 2025, Aston Villa were described as being on course to break the competition record for goals scored from outside the box. (premierleague.com) The caution in ESPN’s analysis is that equipment effects are league-specific. A ball can behave differently with different weather, pitches, boot designs and shooting habits, so a Premier League pattern would not automatically mean the same thing in the Champions League, the European Championship or Major League Soccer. (espn.com) What the numbers show right now is narrower than the highlight reels suggest: the Premier League has not turned into a long-shot league again, but it has become a place where the fewer long shots players do take are going in unusually often. The new Puma ball is one possible reason, and ESPN’s reporting stops short of calling it the only one. (espn.com)