Are there too many early goals?

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Here are the fixtures so far in my 2016-2017 campaign. I have marked games where a goal was scored before 10 minutes with a full yellow line, and used the dotted yellow lines to indicate goals scored in the 11-13th minute as well.

So one team got a "flying start to the match" in 16+5 out of 52 matches. That is 30 to 40% of the matches. I think that is about right according to memory, so to me that is the amount of matches that start off with one team bouncing around like happy bunnies and the other wanting to dig their own graves (this effect evens out after a little while, though, unless another is added quickly - which I also tend to see a lot, hence the high goal amount in many of these matches).

The questions: are many others seeing this as well, or is it only me? What is the real-life statistics on this? And if this observation carries weight, is the devastating effect on the conceding team too severe, causing first-goal-wins scenarios too often?

It depends on your tactics. I don't think this is anything to complain about really.

Didn't complain

Nothing to complain about no, just trying to find out if it is only me (my tactics, my playing style) or if it is something lots of other people experience. I don't see how a 30% early goal ratio is connected to my tactic, though... except perhaps that it is an attacking tactic that I use both home and away?

If you are still considered an underdog on the division i guess that most teams will be offensive against you, if you are always playing with an attacking strategy you can probably exploit better the space on their defense early on, specially on away matches.

If your defenders have low Concentration, it may also lead to more goals at the beginning of each half.

Well I think if you check Man Utd stats for this season you'd find roughly the same if not even a higher percentage. Especially in the first half off the season they often started with an insane tempo, got a goal quite fast and slowed down letting their opponents come and hitting them on the counter.

Also as Coentrao says, considering how long it takes for rep to build it's quite likely that a lot of teams still see you as a weaker opponent, so they play an attacking strategy which you easily tear apart.

To me it seems as though the chance of scoring in the first few minutes of a match is the same as any other point in the match, whereas in real life I think there are less goals in the beginning of a game than the rest of it as a result of both sides "testing the water" of their opponents. no stats to back myself up, just observation.

Yeah naturally, two attacking strategies and fired-up players will cause more goals to be scored, so it is only logical that early goals will be more common in those matches. The question is if 1/3 matches having a goal or more before people have sat down on their seats is a bit much even though both teams try to wrestle control of the match.

And yes I do like it better when the opponent is attacking. They are usually not that good at it, and their attacking tactics are a bit too simplistic in approach - they are more aimed at creating many chances quickly and overloading my half than actually outplaying me. I would never play such unbalanced tactics! Their defensive tactics tend to be better, and I struggle the most with the 352/532 tactic: they can actually push high with it and have players everywhere while having defensive control. I usually crush those AI teams that just push all their players forward with no plan whatsoever and with obviously very high attacking mentalities on their attackers (it makes them useless).

In any case, I score early on defensive teams as well, and defensive teams score early on me (those are the hardest, most frustrating games!). I haven't bothered going into detail about how exactly those early goals are scored and which circumstances could possibly make them more likely. The thread was made to gather data, actually. It only takes a few minutes to go through all the fixtures and count goals scored the first ten minutes and I think it is interesting to see such statistics not only from those who have noticed them as peculiar (like me) but also those who haven't (like nine_iron in post #2).

There are too many first half goals when compared to reality. So, there probably are too many early goals.