by Andrew Beasley
Who have been the five best forwards in the Premier League during 2016-17?
In many ways, forwards are the easiest players on the pitch to assess. You can count up the goals and see who has the most.
There are always other factors to consider, though. At the most basic level, some will have scored some of their goals via penalties. Each striker will have had a different amount of time on the pitch. Depending on which team they play for, each forward will also have been set up with different quality of goal scoring opportunities.
I thought it would be interesting to go beyond all of that, by looking at the quality of opponent scored against. After all, a goal scored against Chelsea should be worth more in an assessment like this than one against Sunderland, right?
Using data from the Transfermarkt website, I was able to determine the league placing of a player’s opponents on the day of the match. This is then flipped to give a points rating, so a goal against the league leaders is worth 20 points, down to one point for scoring against the rock bottom club. Each goal scored on the road was given a bonus half point, as away teams score fewer goals in total.
Add the scores up, and divide them by the amount of time each player has had on the pitch, and you get a “goal points per 90 minutes played” score to rank the players on. I have gone with the top five scorers of non-penalty goals (through April 17), so let’s take a look at the five best forwards in the Premier League.
5. Alexis Sanchez, Arsenal
Goal points per 90 minutes played: 4.71
It’s been a strange campaign for the Chilean striker. Despite alleged bust-ups with Arsene Wenger, and a string of rumors linking him with a move away from the club in the summer, Alexis Sanchez has scored the joint-second most non-penalty goals in the Premier League this season. If his heart isn’t in it any more, as some people suspect, imagine what he might actually be capable of.
He’s scored 13 of his 17 non-penalty goals on the road this season, making him the top recipient of the away bonus points in this countdown. Has playing away from the pressure of the Emirates Stadium, where 60,000 home fans demand routine victories, allowed him to play with greater freedom?
Sanchez has tended to score against the league’s lesser lights, though, picking up five of his goals when playing against teams in the relegation zone. He has also only scored once against one of Arsenal’s immediate rivals, when he got the opener in the Gunners’ 3-0 win over Chelsea back in September.
He deserves credit for being in the top five at all considering he doesn’t always play as an out-and-out forward, and on a simple goals per 90 basis he’d actually be third in this list. A lack of goals in the big clashes has held him back here, though.
4. Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Manchester United
Goal points per 90 minutes played: 4.95
Why did anybody ever doubt him? Well, because he was turning 35 early in this season and he had spent the previous four years knocking around in the relative backwaters of Ligue 1.
Many believed the pace and physicality of the Premier League may prove too much for the Swede, but he has showed that has not been the case at all. In all competitions this season, the veteran has bagged a hugely impressive 28 goals.
But at what cost has Zlatan had success on a personal level? It seems that United are too focused on getting the most out of Ibrahimovic at the cost of their other attackers.
Zlatan may have 15 non-penalty league goals, but no other United player has more than six. He has played virtually every minute of every game when available. The progress of exciting youngsters like Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford may have been compromised as a result.
Like Sanchez, Ibrahimovic has scored more times on the road this season, though both of his big game goals — against Manchester City and Liverpool — have been at Old Trafford. No player has missed more clear-cut chances than Zlatan in the Premier League this season, though, and if he’d scored a few of those he’d be higher up this list.
3. Diego Costa, Chelsea
Goal points per 90 minutes played: 5.79
The player everyone loves to hate. The Premier League’s own pantomime villain. Whatever your view of Diego Costa, there’s no denying that he scores goals, even if he has also picked up the joint-most yellow cards given to a forward this season.
When Chelsea went on the 13-game winning run which looks like it will have propelled them to winning the 2016-17 title, Costa scored in nine of the matches. By scoring the winner in 1-0 victories over Middlesbrough, West Brom and Crystal Palace, the Spanish international made a vital contribution to the Blues’ remarkable run.
His form has certainly tailed off in 2017. Costa was strongly linked with a big money move to China in January, and perhaps the speculation has affected him. He has only scored three times in the league since the turn of the year.
Costa has scored two goals against the other teams in the big six this season — away at City and at home to Liverpool — but he also only has one goal against a bottom three side, which is fewer than his predecessors on this list. He has the highest average opposition rank of the players on this list, which is to his credit as a goal scorer.
2. Harry Kane, Tottenham
Goal points per 90 minutes played: 7.00
By scoring against Bournemouth recently, Harry Kane put his name up in lights alongside some legends of the Premier League.
4 - Harry Kane is only the 4th player to score 20+ goals in 3 consecutive @premierleague seasons (Shearer, Henry, van Nistelrooy). Elite.
Not to diminish his achievement, but as four of his league goals this season have been penalties they don’t count in my ranking system, else he’d probably be No. 1. He has also only scored non-penalty goals in 10 matches this season, whereas the likes of Diego Costa have scored in sixteen.
The England striker has bagged hat-tricks against decent mid-ranking opposition in the form of West Brom and Stoke, but aside from a penalty at Arsenal, Kane hasn’t scored against any of Spurs’ rivals in the top six this season.
Only four non-penalty goals on the road is perhaps a disappointing contribution, too, especially as he hasn’t scored one since New Year’s Day. This has given him by far the fewest away goal bonus points of any player on this list. He’s missed eight games through injury which won’t have helped, though, with five of those being away from home.
Kane has recorded the top two goal-point-scoring matches of the five players in the countdown, and four of the top seven. But he also has three of the bottom five, and that has held him back from reaching the top of the pile.
1. Romelu Lukaku, Everton
Goal points per 90 minutes played: 7.09
The Belgian international only just pipped Harry Kane to the title, but as you can see from the scores these two have been a fair way ahead of the competition. Ignoring the stats if we can, that instinctively feels like it has been the case this season.
Using my method, Lukaku has amassed a total of over 50 points more than his nearest rival. He also leads this quintet on a more straightforward minutes per non-penalty goal system, finding the net every 117 minutes on average. Everton’s number 10 has also scored in the joint-most matches this season (16), so is a deserved winner of the title of best forward in the Premier League.
He may have scored four goals against Bournemouth and three against Sunderland, but Lukaku is also the top scorer in the hardest games among these players, having scored three times against teams who make up the Premier League’s big six.
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