Some people say the way you play is of greater importance than the points you get from the way you play. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t ask that to a coach who’s in need of three points to keep his job alive. At the end of the day he needs goals, football’s divine antidote to every problem. Goals, goals, goals. The easiest of ways to play and win matches is to outscore your opponent and the easiest way to get your name out there and start climbing the football pyramid is to score more goals than anyone else.
So, here we are this week to talk about GOALS. Concretely, goals coming from the Football League’s biggest overperformers, those who have scored more than expected. We have restricted the search to players under the age of 27, who have played at least 1500 minutes and who have collected a positive xG difference of 3 or more. Following this, we ended up selecting the following players and we’ll asses whether some of them can maintain their overscoring streak.
Isaac Olaofe – 1999 (24) – Stockport County – League Two – Market value around 450k
After a few years of being loaned here and there, Olaofe joined permanently Stockport County and scored 20 goals to help them achieve promotion to League One. He did that while having only 67 shots, so he averaged an astonishing 3.35 shots per goal. His 0.22 xG per shot was the 4th highest in all the Football League. As we always need to do, we have to take into account the team he was playing for. Stockport County were the division’s most dominant team, achieved 92 points and created a lot of good opportunities for Olaofe. In fact, thanks to his team’s quality service, he took more high-probability shots, those who have a 30% to 100% likelihood of being scored (17 shots), than medium quality shots (16 shots), those between 5% and 10%.
Olaofe is a powerful runner and holds up play well, but on top of everything else he’s a classic fox in the box. Most of his goals came from short-range shots. He took 19 six-yard box shots and scored 7 of them. He’s also great in the air when facing crosses: 27% of his total efforts on goal were headers, with 5 of them finding the net.
Given he has outscored his xG in all seasons he has played significant minutes and the type of goals he’s been scoring of late, there’s a case to be made that Isaac Olaofe will keep overperforming, not because of his shooting quality but because of his dominant, physical style that allows him find good goalscoring positions.
Max Dean – 2004 (20) – MK Dons (now: KAA Gent) – League Two – Market value around 300k
It’s a bit of a shame the English pyramid lost Max Dean to Gent this summer because he could have been a great example of how to step up one or two divisions after starting from the bottom. Instead, and is no mean fit, he will be playing in Belgium’s first tier from now on. Max Dean is a shooting machine, he averaged 3.82 shots every 90′, with no one coming close to that figure, but he’s also quite effective at creating chances. The former Everton and Leeds player enjoyed a promising first full professional season with 20 goal contributions. Among the 137 forwards that played more than 1500′ in the Football League, he generated the 11th-most xG per 90′ (0.46).
On paper, he seems to be a forward that can quickly get shots off, that reads the play well and gets himself in good shooting positions while having good technique to place those shots. However, in this case we don’t really know if this will be sustainable or not, as we don’t have backing given this is Max Dean first ever professional season. We will have to keep an eye on the Jupiler Pro League.
Morgan Whittaker – 2001 (23) – Plymouth Argyle – Championship – Market value around 12M
Whittaker is one of two players in our list that is not a centre forward but rather a right-sided, left-footed attacker, that can also play centrally but behind the striker. He shoots a lot, and we mean an awful lot. He was the 3rd attacking player with the most shots per game (3.47) and consequently needed a lot of shots to score a goal (8.74 shots per goal). Also, his shots aren’t particularly well-located hence his 0.06 xG per shot. However, there are reasons for that.
Argyle escaped relegation in the last game of the season and were bad really. Whittaker stepped up by scoring 19 non-penalty goals and single-handedly improved Argyle’s attacking output by shooting and shooting. In the xG map below, we can see where the majority of those shots came from: they were long-range shots from central areas or shots that came from Whittaker cutting inside from the right to his left foot. The likelihood of those shots being turned into goals is low and we now get why he averaged a 0.06 xG per shot.
That’s fine, but how on Earth can we explain that +8.6 xG difference?
Because of two correlated things: one is that Whittaker has a marvelous left foot to bend shots into the corners and the other is that Argyle know that and they are constantly looking to find him with space to shoot, even in set-piece actions. They allow him to shoot a lot because his numbers back him. He has the ability to turn average chances (10.4 xG) into good opportunities thanks to his shooting quality (15 xGOT). So, at the end of the day, the difference between the goals scored and the xGOT is narrower compared to that +8.6 xG difference between goals scored and xG. And that’s all on Whittaker, who’s one of the Football League best shooters.
Our verdict on this player would be that he’s mostly ready to continue with this trend of overscoring, he has shown similar things in the previous seasons and while his team has helped him this year there are reasons (mainly his own technical, inherent quality) to think that this season wasn’t a one-off.
Emmanuel Latte Lah – 1999 (25) – Middlesbrough – Championship – Market value around 4.2M
Latte Lah scored 16 goals as Boro finished 8th in the Championship with a xG difference of +6.2. The previous season, while at St. Gallen, he managed 14 goals from 12.2 xG. He has worked his way up from Pistolese in Serie C to the Championship by scoring goals but not really overperforming. Last season, he neither shot a lot nor had a great xG per shot (0.14), but his xGOT difference was +2.77, meaning he improved the chances he got thanks to his shooting. Could this be a case of Latte Lah being super confindent?
If we look at the numbers of goals he has scored that came from chances worth 0.1xG to 0.3xG, we see a fine progression: 2 goals from 21 shots in 20/21, 3 from 9 in 21/22, 8 from 35 in 22/23 and 10 from 33 last season. His goals and shots are also greatly shared between headers (25% of shots and 5 goals), left-footed (32% of shots and 4 goals) and right-footed shots (44% of shots and 7 goals).
He’s undoubtedly heating up and he’s progression looks to be in full flow but it wouldn’t be fair for him if we admitted that he’s going to register a big xG difference again next year. However, given his confidence is so high at the moment and he has those finishes in his locker, we should be following him next year.
This was our most comprehensive analysis of what to expect from those overperforming players. Confidence, shooting quality and their teams possibilities open up a number of different worlds for every striker. Be interesting to come back here in a year to check if goals are still raining.
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