Stats Analysis: Striking Differences - Touches per Goal

When we talk about strike partnerships, you often used to hear about combinations of ‘little and large’ – Owen and Heskey, Baros and Kollar, Phillips and Quinn to name but a few. Playing with this kind of forward line would allow for long balls to be flicked on with the quicker member of the duo running in behind the defence and through on goal. Each of the strikers could quite feasibly touch the ball just once on its way to the opposition area via the grand old, unattractive and infrequently successful English tradition of ‘route one’ football.

Meanwhile, the European game was strides ahead, with the Dutch playing ‘total football’ and the Spanish developing their passing game. The inception of the likes of Dennis Bergkamp and Eric Cantona into English football introduced a new style of striker, who would drop into deeper positions to get the ball more often. 

Now that football played across Europe involves a great variety of types of strikers, WhoScored.com has decided to take a look at those attackers from Europe’s top 5 leagues who have scored at least five goals this season, in terms of the number of touches of the ball each has had per goal scored. With this in mind, we have found those strikers that are more involved in linking up play with their midfield, and also those who epitomise that fox-in-the-box mould of a striker, picking up goals despite touching the ball significantly fewer times.

Most Touches per Goal

Of the strikers in the top 5 leagues to have netted over 5 league goals this season, 9 have over 100 touches of the ball per goal they have scored. One might well expect that Lionel Messi would be up there due to his constant involvement in Barcelona’s creative play, but due to the sheer number of goals he has scored he does not feature. In fact, it is one of the players often thought of as a classic English target man who leads the rankings in terms of most touches per goal.

Peter Crouch has been a regular feature for Stoke since his summer move from Spurs, and it seems, he has been more involved than most in his side’s build up play. Streaks ahead of the rest, 6”7 Crouch has had more than 142 touches of the ball for every goal he has scored in the Premier League this season. One may just point to the fact that he only has 6 goals to account for this fact. However, Crouch has only had 32 shots at goal, meaning he scores a goal every 5.3 shots, which is only marginally worse than Robin van Persie’s rate of a goal per 5.2 shots. The Dutchman takes just over 55 touches for every goal he scores; suggesting Crouch’s contribution is elsewhere.

Crouch has become more of linking player in building Stoke attacks, often receiving the ball with his back to goal and holding it up in order to bring midfielders into play. He has attempted 623 passes this season, which is the second most of all players in the Stoke squad, a somewhat unusual statistic for a centre forward.

Second in the list is Cesena’s ex-Chelsea striker Adrian Mutu. Most obviously a different kind of player to Crouch due to his size, Mutu makes up a much smaller strike force than you would ever see at Stoke, with Brazilian Eder. Mutu has had 123 touches of the ball for every goal that scored, but has attempted significantly fewer passes than Crouch, with just 444 from just one less start. The Romanian has plenty more chances and should well have done better this season in terms of goals as a result, scoring a goal every 9.3 shots.

Next up is Spurs’ Emmanuel Adebayor, who makes a not all too surprising appearance in our list. The on-loan striker has just over 116 touches for every goal he has scored. He also takes the 6th most shots per game in the Premier League this season, and despite scoring 9 goals, has wasted plenty of decent opportunities. He does however, do a similar job to Crouch in terms of linking play and despite his height, does do most of his ball work with his feet. It is particularly interesting to note that Adebayor has 16 touches per goal more than Wayne Rooney. The England forward is known for dropping deep to get the ball, and has even featured in central midfield for United this season and this highlights the importance and frequency of Adebayor’s involvement in Tottenham’s attacks.

Fewest Touches per Goal

When it comes to Europe’s strikers who touch the ball the fewest times but still find the back of the net frequently, there is rather less in the way of surprises.  Bayern’s goal machine Mario Gomez leads the charts, scoring 16 goals from just 535 touches of the ball all season – just over half the amount of touches Emmanuel Adebayor has had and yet 7 more goals.

Interestingly, Gomez is also a big striker that some may think of as a target man, but he clearly has a starkly different approach to the game to Peter Crouch. Gomez is one of Europe’s top marksmen, epitomised no more clearly than by his ruthless scoring habit this season. His rate of a goal every 33 touches of the ball is the best in Europe’s top 5 leagues and over 4 times fewer touches per goal than Crouch.

Dimitar Berbatov has a good goal-scoring record this season, with 6 goals in 9 Premier League appearances. He has made 5 of those appearances as a substitute, and has clearly taken his chances well - he has only had 36.8 touches per goal. More impressive due to the amount of time he has had on the field, is Hannover’s Mohammed Abdellaoue’s rate of 37 touches per goal scored.

Abdellaoue has started 15 of Hannover’s 18 Bundesliga games this season, regularly completing the full 90 minutes. However, he has only averaged touching the ball 22.2 times per game he has played, highlighting his role as not much more than a goal threat for his side. His weaknesses on his profile page are highlighted as ‘Passing’ and ‘Holding on to the ball’. He has also not picked up a single assist this season having only made only made 4 key passes in total. The Norwegian international is clearly a goal threat for his side but it seems, not much more than that.