Given the popularity of last week’s in-depth analysis of the Premier League’s top tackling midfielders, we’ve been plotting away again to build a comparison of Europe’s leading goalscorers this season.
With just over six weeks until the domestic season’s end in most cases in Europe’s top 5 leagues, the race is well and truly on to win the Golden Shoe award. Indeed, with 9 players having netted more than 20 league goals already in the current campaign, we look into their stats to assess who have truly been the best finishers.
At present Gonzalo Higuain leads the scoring charts, with 29 goals from 30 appearances, but how do his overall shooting and goalscoring statistics weigh up against the competition?
Here we look into just how effective each of Europe’s top 5 leagues’ leading scorers have been, analysing four variables to have contributed to their success this season.
The categories we have identified in this analysis are; 1) frequency - the amount of minutes on the pitch it has taken to find the net, 2) conversion - the percentage of total shots taken scored, 3) accuracy - the percentage of total shots taken that have hit the target, 4) opportunity - the percentage of goals scored from open play.
Option four was chosen due to the fact that while it is of course still positive to score from dead ball situations, those who aren’t presented with such duties have fewer chances to find the net as a result. For example, if two players were to score the same amount of goals but one scored half of his strikes from the penalty spot and the other wasn’t on spot kick duties, the latter’s tally would certainly be the more impressive.
Again, the bigger the shaded area for each player the better, with the average area of the nine players analysed also included in the results below.
The graphs show three clear leaders as far as the assessed statistics are concerned, with all three still very much in the race to be crowned top scorer across Europe’s top 5 leagues. Luis Saurez, who is three off the lead on 26 goals, has been in sensational form to usurp the goalscoring exploits of teammates Messi and Neymar this season.
Indeed, the Uruguayan is the only player here to perform above the average of the nine players for each statistic (the white shape on each player’s chart). His conversion rate of 24.5% is strongest here, with Neymar (20.4%) just above the average (19.6%) and Messi just below (18.5%) given the volume of shots he takes.
The Argentine, in fact, is closest to the average white plot of the nine players, just exceeding the figure in terms of frequency and shot accuracy but dropping below again in terms of the percentage of goals he has scored from open play.
The other strongest performers here are Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Robert Lewandowski, who have scored 27 and 25 goals respectively. Of course, the strength of the opposition he has faced this season has played a key part in Ibrahimovic’s goal tally but his frequency in finding the net is still remarkable, at a goal every 75.3 minutes. To put that into perspective, scoring at such a rate would leave a player with 45 goals for the season if he were to play every minute of a 38-game campaign.
That, of course, is not a luxury Robert Lewandowski has given that the Bundesliga is four-matches shorter, so were he to end the season as top scorer it would be an outstanding achievement. The Pole excels here in terms of the percentage of goals he has scored from open play, with only 2 of his 25 league strikes coming from set piece situations.
When compared to the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, that figure looks even more impressive. The Portuguese may be hot on Higuain’s tail on 28 goals this season, but in contrast to Lewandowski only 15 of his efforts have been scored from open play. The more alarming statistic, or perhaps not to those that somewhat question the validity of his sensational strike rate, is that Ronaldo has the lowest conversion rate (14.7%) of the nine players by a distance. Indeed, he only exceeds the average figure for minutes per goal, and marginally at that (every 96.4 minutes).
The Real Madrid man has a similar shaped area here to that of Harry Kane, though the 22-year old is strong when it comes to hitting the target but the weakest here by some way in terms of frequency (scoring once every 130.4 minutes).
Top scorer Higuain’s chart is odd compared to his challengers, strangely dipping below average in terms of conversion rate and shot accuracy - with the latter the lowest of the nine (43.9%). He, along with Messi, Neymar and Aubameyang, is above the average figure in two of the four statistics. However it’s Suarez, Ibrahimovic and Lewandowski that have clearly been the most efficient and impressive finishers in Europe this season, with both Lionel Messi and, to a greater extent, Cristiano Ronaldo way back by comparison.
Which players do you have been the most impressive in front of goal this season? Let us know in the comments below
