[Football] Who are the "15 goals a season" strikers?

[elwheelio]

There's so much talk on here, and elsewhere, about the need for a "proven" 15-20 goal a season striker. Obviously that would be wonderful but I thought it might be interesting to see how many strikers have actually managed to score 15 or more in a season.

For no reason in particular I've looked at the past six seasons in the Premier League. During this time 25 players have scored 15 or more goals in a single season. 13 of these players have hit 15 (or more) goals only once and six more players have done it twice in the past six years.

Only six players have scored 15 or more goals in three or more seasons in the Premier League in the past six years. Obviously, this low number can be explained for a number of reasons over and above the fact that scoring 15 goals in a season is quite difficult - some players will have been injured or will have moved to other leagues or only recently arrived in the Premier League etc.

However, it is interesting (to me at least) that only six players have managed 15 goals a season in three or more of the last six seasons. These players are:

Kane - Scored 15+ goals every season for the past 6 seasons - averaging 23 per season

Aguero - Scored 15+ goals every season for the past 6 seasons - averaging 21 per season

Vardy - Scored 15+ goals in 4 of the past 6 seasons

Salah - Scored 15+ goals in each of his 3 seasons in the PL with Liverpool - averaging 24 per season

Lukaku - Scored 15+ goals in 3 of the last 5 seasons before moving to Serie A

Sterling - Scored 15+ goals in the past three seasons

Among other things, what these stats suggest to me is that only the real elite players can regularly hit 15 or more goals a season. To hit those levels we need to either buy one of the above or find someone at that level. In my humble opinion, neither of these things is going to happen. Even players many of us have wanted (or dreamed of) playing for the Albion don't actually hit the number of goals many of us seem to think we need from a single player. Giroud has only got to 15 goals once (16 goals in 2015/16), same with Firmino (15 goals in 2017/18), Martial (17 in 2019/20) and Rashford (17 in 2019/20).

Occassionally someone from a lesser team will have a purple patch and hit 15 goals in a single season such as when Austin got 18 for QPR in 2014/15, Ighalo got 16 for Watford in 2015/16, Llorente got 16 for Swansea in 2016/17 or last year when Ings managed 22 in a season. Similarly, a lot of well-established (and very good) strikers have never hit 15 goals in a Premier League season. This list includes Lacazette, Jesus, Son, Origi, Wilson, Wood and Richarlison.

Anyway, in conclusion, with a fair wind, it might be possible to get someone in the Brighton team to 15 goals in a season but doing this regularly would be a Herculean task. Even much bigger names in much better teams have failed to be regular "15 goal a season" strikers. A far more realistic and achieveable aim is to hope that we manage to have two or three players that hit between 8-12 goals a season and that other parts of the squad start to chip in more than they have been.

 

[keaton]

Agree with your point. Maupauy scores enough and works hard. We need other people to chip in of we're going to push on

 

[albionfan37]

At our level we need to hope he’s in the youth team or current first team squad or get lucky like Southampton and pick up an ings type

 

[schmunk]

I agree, it's too much pressure on one person. What we really should aim for is at least 5 goals from each player in the squad. I reckon that's achievable.

 

[Stat Brother]

Has there been talk of a 15 goal scorer?

To me it feels like we've come away from that Div 4 thinking and have set our sights on a more realistic 'double figure' haul.


For that we already have one banker.
One who should also go very very close.

Plus at least 3 other players who should be combining for considerably more goals, than their current output.

Add another 5-10 goals from a 'different type of striker' and the team is well set.

 

[elwheelio]

I agree, it's too much pressure on one person. What we really should aim for is at least 5 goals from each player in the squad. I reckon that's achievable.

Time for Ryan to pull his finger out.

 

[Scappa]

Time for Ryan to pull his finger out.

His legs are too stumpy to allow him to get up and down the pitch quickly enough.


He's got a lot of work to do to better Jose Luis Chilavert's career goal haul

 

[A1X]

The problem with our current stocks is what we do if Maupay gets injured. Yes he can do the job just fine on his own. But if he breaks his leg and is out for 6 months then what?

 

[elwheelio]

Has there been talk of a 15 goal scorer?

To me it feels like we've come away from that Div 4 thinking and have set our sights on a more realistic 'double figure' haul.


For that we already have one banker.
One who should also go very very close.

Plus at least 3 other players who should be combining for considerably more goals, than their current output.

Add another 5-10 goals from a 'different type of striker' and the team is well set.

We certainly have players that we all feel could add goals. The question is will/can they? That's partly the reason for my post - it's interesting to note just how few players regularly score goals.

 

[Scappa]

The problem with our current stocks is what we do if Maupay gets injured. Yes he can do the job just fine on his own. But if he breaks his leg and is out for 6 months then what?

We revert to late-stage Hughtonball - eleven men behind the ball dropping deeper and deeper until we're stood behind the goal-line - no need for a striker.

 

[Stat Brother]

We certainly have players that we all feel could add goals. The question is will/can they? That's partly the reason for my post - it's interesting to note just how few players regularly score goals.

Deffo, GPott needs to get a little more from Trossard.
Biss can't have another 50 shots 1 goal season.
I don't want to ask too much of Jocko, but he does need to be up to speed by the end of the calendar year.

Not to mention the centre backs ought to all be nearer 5 than 1, what with the delivery Groß provides.


I really felt like Nunez was the final piece of the jigsaw, but I'd be equally happy with a 'cheap' journeyman lump up front just to relieve some pressure.

 

[jamie (not that one)]

Everyone is looking to unearth the next Michu. Southampton took a punt on perma-injured Ings and won, but they don't come around often.

 

[Pavilionaire]

1. I believe the only striker outside of Leicester and the big 6 clubs to have scored 10 or more in each of the last 3 Prem seasons is Chris Wood, with 14, 10 and 10.

2. You're very unlikely to get relegated if you have a player that can score 12 goals + .

What you need is one striker who will get you 10+ goals and the rest to chip in around him. If you can get two strikers who will get you ten goals each then you're looking at top half of the table.

If you sift out the Top 7 teams, those strikers at top half teams and / or on decent money (Richarlison, Calvert-Lewin, Jimenez, Zaha, Ings), then you're only left with Callum Wilson, Josh King, Chris Wood and Ashley Barnes. Now Wilson has joined Newcastle, Josh King will probably end up at Spurs too, so the pickings are slim.

 

[elwheelio]

Exactly. Over to GP to extract the goals.

 

[Mellotron]

Well put. Everyone becomes obsessed with the mythical 15-20 goal target.

All of us would take Lacazette, Son or Jesus like a shot.

The ability of some of those players would draw more goals out of the players around them also, and that's no doubt what we hope from Lallana.

 

[Swansman]

As I usually write when someone say the club needs to sign a "15 goals a season striker" - I think Glenn scoring for fun at age 43 might have ****ed up a lot of peoples perception of what you could expect from a striker at this level

 

[Dick Swiveller]

Knickers - wrong thread

 

[Paulie Gualtieri]

How many team goals should we be targeting this year?

50 shouldn’t be out of the reach of the squad


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[zefarelly]

50 team goals and less than 35 conceded

15 wins 12 draws, job done ;-)

we don't need a 20+ goal striker so much as a few more people who can chip in with 5+ and more than one striker who can score ten+ preferably 3!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Some wise posts on this excellent thread.