The top performing strikers in Europe
We all know the phenomenal stats of Harry Kane at Bayern Munich and Haaland at Manchester City. But always when looking at their goalscoring stats the question arises, couldn´t anyone playing for such a strong team that always dominates score so many goals? With so many good midfielders and attackers creating hoardes of chances for you every match it could seem almost an easy job to score every game.
To test this hypothesis, we can look at the difference between the xG and the actual goals for strikers. If it shows that top strikers like Kane and Haaland do not outperform their xG values as much as other strikers do, it could be a sign that there may be some truth in the hypothesis that a big part of the reason why they score so many goals are their teammates creating all those chances for them. And putting a different less well known striker there that outperform their expected Goals would have similar or maybe even better results.
xG data across Europe
We give you an overview below of the top 10 players in the top 5 leagues with the largest positive difference between their non-penalty goals/90 minutes and their non-penalty xG/90 minutes. We only have included players that have played at least 1000 minutes.
| Rank | Player | Team | xG/90 | Goals/90 | Difference |
| 1 | Serhou Guirassy | VfB Stuttgart | 0.78 | 1.19 | +0.41 |
| 2 | Wissam Ben Yedder | AS Monaco | 0.34 | 0.70 | +0.36 |
| 3 | Lautaro Martinez | Internazionale | 0.55 | 0.90 | +0.35 |
| 4 | Elijah Adebayo | Luton Town | 0.45 | 0.76 | +0.31 |
| 5 | Deniz Undav | VfB Stuttgart | 0.74 | 1.03 | +0.29 |
| 6 | Jude Bellingham | Real Madrid | 0.40 | 0.68 | +0.28 |
| 7 | Harry Kane | Bayern Munich | 0.80 | 1.07 | +0.27 |
| 8 | Alvaro Morata | Atletico Madrid | 0.59 | 0.82 | +0.23 |
| 9 | Alexandre Lacazette | Olympique Lyon | 0.36 | 0.58 | +0.22 |
| 10 | Dusan Vlahovic | Juventus | 0.50 | 0.70 | +0.20 |
Definitely some big names in the top 10, with Harry Kane, Lautaro Martinez and Jude Bellingham appearing. However, there are definitely a few giants missing that we would have expected in this last. Erling Haaland for example never came close to making it, with 0.81 x/90 but only 0.71 goals per 90 minutes. Mbappe , another big striker not featured came closer, scoring 0.84 goals per 90 minutes on an xG of 0.67 per 90.
So would Serhou Guirassy or Wissam Ben Yedder do better at Manchester City than Haaland does? Of course this is not enough data to build a strong conclusion like that. We would need more data over more seasons to see if above players can consistently outrank their Expected Goals more strongly than Haaland would. Furthermore, maybe the fact that Haaland has created such high xG/90 would maybe suggest that his playing style and ability to position in the penalty box actually lets City create so many chances for him, which other players might not be able to. However, the data above do tell a story and can show some depth to your football analysis.