How Good Are Kane, Haaland, Lewandowski And Lukaku At Shooting? We’ve Ranked Them Based On Their Stats
With Manchester City and a number of other clubs having been linked with Tottenham’s Harry Kane, Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland, Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski and Inter’s Romelu Lukaku this summer, we have decided to compare their goalscoring records.
The stat we will be using is Non-Penalty Goals Minus xG. This shows us which striker has outperformed their expected goals based on the actual number of non-penalty goals they have scored.
A couple of caveats here. We have not included penalties as these can skew the results. We are also using StatBomb stats (via FBRef) which are incomplete as their xG data only goes back to the start of the 2017/18 season, but even so, it still gives a fair reflection of how the players have performed over the past four years.
Press the next page as we assess the four strikers’ performances in front of goal
4) Romelu Lukaku (+4.2 Non-Penalty Goals – xG)
The Belgian international is clearly a very good finisher based on the fact he has outperformed his xG by four between 2017 and 2021.
However, it isn’t a figure that suggests he is an elite striker. Lukaku is above average when it comes to putting away chances, but he is the least efficient of the four forwards we are comparing.
3) Robert Lewandowski (+5.8)
Considering the Polish international’s incredible goalscoring record in recent years, you would expect this figure to be A LOT higher than it actually is.
The fact is, Lewandowski gets a huge number of opportunities to score simply because he plays for Bayern Munich. Over the last four seasons, his total xG is almost double Harry Kane’s.
2) Erling Haaland (+9.3)
The fact that Haaland is so high on this list is even more impressive when you know that we only have xG data for him since he moved to the Bundesliga at the start of 2020.
However, with the sample size being smaller, it means we have to be careful about making any sweeping judgements about his finishing. Currently, though, he is outperforming his xG significantly, suggesting he is a top-level finisher.
1) Harry Kane (+15.0)
To be honest, the Tottenham forward is head and shoulders above the rest. As we mentioned when we were talking about Lewandowski, the England international has far fewer chances than the Pole but he is superb at finishing the ones he is presented with.
Kane has scored 15 more goals than the average striker would have done if he was handed the exact same opportunities. The 27-year-old is, by far and away, the best at shooting on this list.
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