Reece James put the ball on his arc, low behind the far post, only to see it curve back towards goal and sneak into the bottom corner.
He ran off in celebration. A beautiful finish, a point win for Chelsea against Bournemouth but above all a collector's item, something you rarely see in the Premier League these days: a goal directly from a free kick.
James' try was only the seventh in the top flight this season. Last season we had only seen four at this stage. There were just 11 all season, the fewest in a Premier League campaign since 1997-98. Not a single free kick was scored at the European Championships this summer.
Just five seasons ago, in 2019/20, we saw 26 goals scored throughout the season. In 2013-2014 almost 40. In 2007-2008 more than that.
That season, when 41 free-kicks found the net, one in every 25 goals in the Premier League was a free-kick. Last season it was one in 111. Before this weekend it was one in 90. One of football's finest strokes is now sadly a dying art.
Gone are the days when you had to bend it like David Beckham. Even gone are the days of hitting like James Ward-Prowse. What happened? When did the free kicks start disappearing?
VICTORY FOR THE NERDS
We see fewer goals from free kicks because fewer players are shooting. It's that simple.
Go back to 2010-2011 and for every free kick won by a team in the final third of the pitch, around one in 3.5 resulted in a shot on target. This season that is one in six. The numbers are steadily declining.
That's because in an age of analytics and expected goals, numbers rule, especially when so much is at stake for Premier League clubs and managers.
How often do we hear commentators describing a player who is ready to 'try his luck' or who 'likes his chances'. There are too many riches in it to leave it to fate or fortune.
About five percent of free kicks go ahead, according to available data over the past 22 seasons. That number increases or decreases by a few percentage points depending on the season, but remains stable enough. So about one in twenty attempts.
Those aren't great chances when you need a goal. Even Ward-Prowse only scores one in eight.
“Stoppages can turn games around, so you want to do things that statistically give you a better chance of scoring than a player trying to get the ball into the top corner from 30 yards,” a senior official at a top Premier League club told Mail Sports. .
'It is now less about “this player wants to go” and more about what is statistically the best decision for each team at each moment. Set-piece analysts realize that the xG to be scored in such situations is significantly low compared to a cross causing chaos in the box.
“It just doesn't make much sense to go straight like Beckham used to.”
Good thing there were no analysts within earshot when Becks put together his famous try against Greece all those years ago…
GUNNERS DON'T GAMBLE
Arsenal is perhaps the biggest example of this change. The Gunners have won 128 free-kicks in the final third since the start of last season and have scored just eight times.
The last free-kick they scored in the competition was Martin Odegaard against Burnley in September 2021, two months after the arrival of their recently muraled coach Nicolas Jover. None since then.
With the Gunners trailing north London rivals Tottenham by a goal on Wednesday night, Odegaard won a free-kick slightly to the right of the goal about 25 yards out. Very much 'on territory'.
But instead of aiming for the top corner, Odegaard fired the ball towards the back post towards his teammates in the penalty area.
Compare this to Arsenal in Arsene Wenger's final season, who won 93 free-kicks in the final third and converted 30 of them for a goal. They still didn't score.
Some teams still like to risk their arm. Brighton have gone for goal with 28 percent of their final third free-kicks this season, Chelsea almost a quarter. The latter are the only team to score from more than one of them this season.
But the pattern is clear. Since the start of 2017/18, no Premier League campaign has ended with more than 400 shots on target from a free kick. Last season there were only 283. Before that, however, more than 400 were recorded in each season, going back to when data collection began in 2003-2004.
WILL WE SEE ANOTHER WARD PROWSE?
There may be no Beckham these days, but there are still players who can fire a free-kick into the top corner. James, for example. Trent Alexander-Arnold, James Maddison, Kieran Trippier.
Ward-Prowse, on loan from West Ham to Nottingham Forest, is one step away from equaling Beckham's Premier League record of 18 free-kicks.
He is the last of the prolific era of free-kick specialists. He scored twice in the 2018/20 and 2019/20 seasons, four in 2020/21, another four the following season and another three the season after that. He hasn't scored in almost two years.
Since the start of 2018/19, only Maddison has scored multiple free-kicks in multiple seasons, but even he had to wait four campaigns before doing so a second time.
Of the thirteen players in Premier League history to score at least nine free-kicks, Ward-Prowse and Maddison are the only current players on that list.
“The art of free kicks has been somewhat lost to the system,” the analyst added. 'Ward-Prowse practiced it for hours as a child, but it is no longer a required skill that people look for. There's so much that replaces this in the modern game, their work rate, their ability to play open, all these things. It's nice to have, but it's not a prerequisite for what you need.'
So enjoy those free kick stuns whenever you see one and cherish them as they become part of a bygone era. As is so often the case in football these days, when everything is at stake, analysis triumphs over artistry.
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