25/03/2024, 17:22

View in browser

James Gheerbrant
Sports Writer

From Bill Anderson: Which strikers are the most profligate this season?
Is bad finishing "contagious" with other strikers at the same club?
Conversely, is clinical finishing contagious?

Bill, thanks for a fun question. The first part of your query is more
straightforward to answer. The best way to get a handle on finishing using
data is to look at a player’s goals scored compared to their expected goals
(xG). xG, to recap, assigns a value between 0 and 1 to every shot, based on
a data-trove of similar historic shots, which measures the quality of the
chance or, if you prefer, the likelihood of it being scored. A chance which
an average top-level player would be expected to score one in every four
times, for example, would have an xG value of 0.25.

So a player whose number of goals scored is greater than the total xG

value of their chances is finishing their chances at an above-average rate;
those who are profligate in front of goal, on the other hand, will have
fewer goals than their total xG. Let’s start there then: here are the ten
Premier League forwards who have undershot their xG by the most this
season:

https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/62ee2daa7ac515fc380f6a90kq2qb.4qs/90c4a762 Page 1 of 9
 25/03/2024, 17:22

That’s one way of looking at it, but perhaps not an entirely fair one. For
example, Armando Broja and Dominic Solanke are only one place apart in
the table above, but Solanke has played nearly five times as many minutes
as Broja – he’s not "leaving goals out there", so to speak, at the same rate.
Looking at who is undershooting their xG the most per 90 minutes
arguably gives us a truer reflection of who the most profligate strikers in
the league are:

https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/62ee2daa7ac515fc380f6a90kq2qb.4qs/90c4a762 Page 2 of 9
 25/03/2024, 17:22

In Bill’s full question, he asked specifically which strikers with ten or more
goals this season are underperforming. Here are those players ranked by
shooting performance relative to xG. Only three of this season’s 13 leading
scorers are underperforming on the finishing front:

https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/62ee2daa7ac515fc380f6a90kq2qb.4qs/90c4a762 Page 3 of 9
 25/03/2024, 17:22

Haaland is a particularly interesting case. Last season, the Manchester

City striker was one of the hottest finishers in the Premier League,
overperforming his xG by 7.35 goals (second behind Harry Kane), or
+0.24 per 90 (second behind Roberto Firmino). His regression to mere
mortal in front of goal is an example of a perhaps surprising but well-

https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/62ee2daa7ac515fc380f6a90kq2qb.4qs/90c4a762 Page 4 of 9
 25/03/2024, 17:22

attested principle.

There is, of course, an element of skill in finishing. Given that, you might
expect the very best strikers to consistently beat their xG by a significant
margin season after season. In fact, with a very small number of
exceptions, that isn’t the case: finishing performance relative to xG tends
to fluctuate for even the very best. Even the genuinely exceptional
finishers who consistently overperform xG season after season (Son,
Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé are in this bracket) oscillate between
periods of mild overperformance and runs of god-level finishing.
Variance, streakiness, the "hot hand": call it what you want, this factor
does seem to play a role in finishing.

So the idea of finishing being contagious, although extremely hard to

prove, is perhaps not as outlandish as it sounds. And indeed, for those
inclined towards such an idea, there is plenty of food for thought in the
data we have already seen: in terms of per-90 performance, this season’s
worst and second-worst finishers play for the same club, as do the third-
and sixth-worst, while the two hottest finishers among the top scorers
represent the same national team. Might it be the case that good or bad
finishing does, somehow, "rub off"?

Well, for a start, there is one fundamental way in which a player’s

finishing affects their team-mates, and that’s to do with an idea we’ve
mentioned before called game state. Whether a team is leading, level or
trailing affects how their matches look. Generally speaking, when a team
is in the lead, their opponents will tend to push up and leave more space
behind them, giving the leading team opportunities to get in behind on
the counter and create clear chances. As a general rule, there will be less
space to play into when a team is level, and even less so when a team is
trailing and their opponents can afford to sit back and defend compactly.

Let’s take Chelsea and Manchester United this season for example. The
average chance created by Chelsea when they’re level or behind is rated at
https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/62ee2daa7ac515fc380f6a90kq2qb.4qs/90c4a762 Page 5 of 9
 25/03/2024, 17:22

around 0.135 xG – in other words, a 13.5 per cent scoring chance. But
when they’re winning, that goes up to 0.166 xG, a 16.6 per cent scoring
chance: a significant difference. So scoring the chances that tip games
from level to a Chelsea lead has a knock-on effect of the easiness of the
chances their strikers will get subsequently. Unfortunately, Chelsea
haven’t been good at doing this: when the scores are level this season,
they’ve only scored 18 goals, from chances worth 23.5 xG.

United’s average chance when level this season is worth 0.11 xG (11 per
cent), but this rises to 0.14 xG (14 per cent) when leading and drops to
0.081 xG (8.1 per cent) when trailing. Erik ten Hag’s team, however, have
been much more clinical when the scoreline is even, scoring 23 goals from
chances worth 19.6 xG. United have made their own luck through
finishing, whereas Chelsea haven’t, and their positions in the table reflect
that.

Beyond this general principle, is there anything to the idea that good or
bad finishing can somehow spread within a squad? It’s extremely difficult
to prove, because it’s so subject to interpretation. Arsenal this season are
an interesting test case. As you can see from the table below, every Arsenal
player is finishing their chances at a better-than-expected rate, with one
notable exception: Gabriel Jesus. Jesus, it’s worth noting, has been a
consistently sub-average finisher over his whole career, undershooting his
xG in every one of his professional seasons.

https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/62ee2daa7ac515fc380f6a90kq2qb.4qs/90c4a762 Page 6 of 9
 25/03/2024, 17:22

You could, then, look at Arsenal’s season in a couple of different ways. On

one hand, we seem to have a case of infectious finishing overperformance
spreading throughout the squad. But it’s also true that Arsenal have added

https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/62ee2daa7ac515fc380f6a90kq2qb.4qs/90c4a762 Page 7 of 9
 25/03/2024, 17:22

one of the most inefficient finishers in football to their squad, without any
apparent negative effect on the finishing form of their other players. So is
that a sign that finishing is contagious, or that it isn’t?

Ultimately, short of arriving at a definitive answer, I do think it’s plausible

that finishing is contagious, to some small degree in some cases, simply
because confidence is. There is a quote, from Kevin Phillips, the former
England and Sunderland striker, from a 2021 The Blizzard article by Ben
Welch, which feels particularly pertinent here:

“When you’re playing in a team that’s full of confidence you know you’re
going to get opportunities,” Phillips said. “On the flip side, I’ve played for
struggling teams and you feel like you’re beaten before you go on to the
pitch. A lack of confidence makes you feel weak and timid. When you do
get your chance, you’re anxious and snatch at it because you’re so
desperate to get your team out of the situation they’re in.”

Phillips, a European Golden Shoe winner, is saying that he would be much

more likely to execute his shots poorly if the team around him was dogged
by bad form and low confidence. One can equally imagine that for Arsenal
this season, the team’s good form and surging confidence in general play
is helping their players to feel more relaxed and assured when it comes to
shooting. “Good luck will rub off when I shake hands with you,” Dick van
Dyke sang in Mary Poppins; who’s to say that good finishing might not do
the same?

Graphics and additional research by Hamzah Khalique-Loonat

What do you want to read next time?

Got a question about your club or a subject you'd like the newsletter to
take an in-depth look at? Email football@thetimes.co.uk

https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/62ee2daa7ac515fc380f6a90kq2qb.4qs/90c4a762 Page 8 of 9
 25/03/2024, 17:22

That's it, you're up to date

What did you think of today's newsletter? Tell us what you'd like to see
more of by emailing us at football@thetimes.co.uk

PODCAST

If you liked this, listen to The Game podcast where our

experts reflect on the weekend's big talking points

Listen here

Download our app for Android and IOS

See all our newsletters | Privacy Policy | Unsubscribe | Terms of service

You have received this as part of your subscription. If you unsubscribe you will still receive offers, promotions
and market research emails, unless you have also unsubscribed from these communications. This email is
from a member of the News UK group. News Corp UK & Ireland Limited, with its registered office at 1 London
Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF, UK, is the holding company for the News UK Group and is registered in
England, no. 81701. VAT number GB 243 8054 69.

https://link.thetimes.co.uk/view/62ee2daa7ac515fc380f6a90kq2qb.4qs/90c4a762 Page 9 of 9