PSG's Mbappe and Liverpool's Salah join Haaland in Europe’s xG Top 10
With the domestic season finishing with a bang and Manchester City winning almost everything in their path, Napoli romping Serie A, PSG lifting Ligue 1, Bayern Munich winning the Bundesliga on the final day and Xavi’s Barcelona clinching the La Liga title. We take a look at the ten players to record the highest xG totals in Europe’s top five leagues according to our xG Model.
In tenth, with an xG of 22 is Harry Kane. In a torrid season for Tottenham in 22/23, you have to give credit to the England top scorer who managed a total of 30 league goals, only topped by Erling Haaland. Of all the players in the top ten, Kane actually overperformed by the largest margin with his 30 goals coming in at 8 goals above his expected.
Real Madrid fell short last season ending their league campaign ten points behind leaders, Barcelona, and being dumped out of the Champions League by Man City. With that said though, Karim Benzema still managed to total an expected goals of 22.6, which he came in 3.4 goals short of.
Liverpool missed out of Champions League qualification after finishing fifth in the Premier League. However, it’s hard to point the finger at the Egyptian, Mo Salah, who scored 25% of Liverpool’s league goals last season. He had a xG of 22.7, the eighth highest total in Europe’s top five leagues.
Victor Osimhen is the only Serie A player to feature in the top ten from Serie A and the Napoli forward is in seventh with an xG of 23.7. He topped the scoring charts in Italy with a total of 26 goals in the campaign, coming in slightly above expectation, and was awarded the WhoScored.com Serie A Player of the Season award with a rating of 7.45.
Lille frontman Jonathan David performed almost exactly to expectation scoring 24 goals from an expected goals of 23.8. The Canadian was particularly lethal in the penalty area with only Kylian Mbappe (24) and Erling Haaland (23) scoring more times inside the penalty area than David’s (22) last season.
Kylian Mbappe is back in the news with more transfer rumours of a departure from PSG and there is no doubt that he will be heavily sought after. Last season, the Frenchman recorded the fifth highest expected goals total with 23.8. The Ligue 1 top scorer netted a total of 29 goals, a tally only bettered by Haaland and Kane, and contributed five assists to PSG’s title hunt.
4) Alexandre Lacazette – 24.2 xG
Ex-Arsenal forward Alexandre Lacazette scored 27 goals in Ligue 1 this season, the second highest tally in the league and averaged a goal every 109 minutes for Lille. He recorded an xG of 24.2 in the campaign, which he overperformed by 2.8 goals.
The Arsenal youngster comes in third place with an expected goals of 25. It was a great season for Balogun who scored 21 goals, and contributed 2 assists, for Stade Reims in Ligue 1 this season. Even more impressively, his goal total made up 46.7% of his sides league goals, the highest proportion of any player in Europe’s top five leagues this season.
2) Robert Lewandowski – 25.3 xG
Poland talisman Robert Lewandowski was La Liga’s top scorer in 2022/23, netting a total of 23 goals, scoring at least four more than any other player in Spain’s premier division. He falls just short here though with a 25.3 xG, the second highest in Europe’s top five leagues.
It is no surprise that Erling Haaland had the highest xG of any player in Europe’s top five leagues this season, with 30.6 xG. It is also not a surprise that even with the most chances, he still managed to beat expectation by 5.4 goals, notching 36 in the Premier League, a total that no one could better in Europe’s top five leagues.
