*THREAD*

The debate regarding who the world's best no.9 is rages on almost every day, and especially every weekend. But if we take a look at the stats from the past five seasons (this season included), it reveals the complexity of naming one player. Why? Let's have a look!

Before we start, we have to set a few criterias for this:

- Plays in a top five league (Premier League, Serie A, LaLiga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1)
- We'll count league, cups and important national team football (tournaments, qualifiers)
- Has played consistently the past five seasons

Based on popular opinion, we are therefore electing a group of five players to look at more extensively:

- Robert Lewandowski
- Luis Suárez
- Sergio Agüero
- Harry Kane
- Karim Benzema

Let's just look at the goals scored for their clubs from each player since the start of the 2015/2016-season:

Lewandowski: 189 goals / 211 matches
Suárez: 160 goals / 217 matches
Agüero: 137 goals / 189 matches
Kane: 138 goals / 191 matches
Benzema: 100 goals / 199 matches

Just to break it down, and perhaps show what this means in essence:

Lewandowski: 0.89 goals a game since 15/16
Suárez: 0.73 goals a game since 15/16
Agüero: 0.72 goals a game since 15/16
Kane: 0.72 goals a game since 15/16
Benzema: 0.50 goals a game since 15/16

In terms of goals on average every season from 15/16 'til 19/20 it gives us this:

Lewandowski: 37.8 goals per season
Suárez: 32 goals per season
Agüero: 27.4 goals per season
Kane: 27.6 goals per season
Benzema: 20 goals per season

For Lewandowski's club goals, this is how he has scored them, according to TransferMarkt:

Right foot: 87
Left foot: 35
Tap-in: 4
Header: 32
Penalty: 27
Direct free kick: 3
Shot reflected to goal: 1
Solo run: 0

For Suárez' club goals, this is how he has scored them, according to TransferMarkt:

Right foot: 106
Left foot: 24
Tap-in: 2
Header: 16
Penalty: 10
Direct free kick: 1
Shot reflected to goal: 0
Solo run: 1

For Agüero's club goals, this is how he has scored them, according to TransferMarkt:

Right foot: 71
Left foot: 19
Tap-in: 3
Header: 20
Penalty: 24
Direct free kick: 0
Shot reflected to goal: 0
Solo run: 0

For Kane's club goals, this is how he has scored them, according to TransferMarkt:

Right foot: 62
Left foot: 33
Tap-in: 0
Header: 20
Penalty: 23
Direct free kick: 0
Shot reflected to goal: 0
Solo run: 0

For Benzema's club goals, this is how he has scored them, according to TransferMarkt:

Right foot: 52
Left foot: 13
Tap-in: 4
Header: 24
Penalty: 7
Direct free kick: 0
Shot reflected to goal: 0
Solo run: 0

But being a true no. 9 these days also means you can set up goals, right? So, who is the assist leader?

Lewandowski: 34 assists / 211 matches
Suárez: 74 assists / 217 matches
Agüero: 31 assists / 189 matches
Kane: 21 assists / 191 matches
Benzema: 43 assists / 199 matches

Let's break this down:

Lewandowski: 0.16 assists a game since 15/16
Suárez: 0.34 assists a game since 15/16
Agüero: 0.16 assists a game since 15/16
Kane: 0.10 assists a game since 15/16
Benzema: 0.21 assists a game since 15/16

Who has the best record for their nation since 2015?

Lewandowski: 37 goals / 45 matches
Suárez: 14 goals / 29 matches
Agüero: 18 goals / 37 matches
Kane: 28 goals / 43 matches
Benzema: 2 goals / 4 matches*

*) Benzema has not been picked by France due to a dispute

In terms of assists, they are all quite equally matched over the course of their entire national team careers, meaning it's not too important.

It is interesting to note, however, that Karim Benzema stands with 18 assists in total for France over the course of 81 games.

One of the arguments against Lewandowski is that he does not score in the later rounds of the CL. So let's have a look:

Lewandowski: 7 goals / 17 matches
Suárez: 5 goals / 17 matches
Agüero: 8 goals / 14 matches
Kane: 2 goals / 5 matches
Benzema: 5 goals / 21 matches

This gives us the average goal per game in the later rounds of the Champions League (Ro16 and throughout):

Lewandowski: 0.41 goals per game
Suárez: 0.29 goals per game
Agüero: 0.57 goals per game
Kane: 0.4 goals per game
Benzema: 0.23 goals per game

WyScout has estimated how many times these five shoot over the course of a game:

Lewandowski: 3.98 shots (46.8% on target)
Suárez: 3.33 shots (49.2% on target)
Agüero: 4.18 shots (42.9% on target)
Kane: 3.78 shots (47.6% on target)
Benzema: 3.18 shots (47.8% on target)

Deadlock

In terms of passing, WyScout has this:

Lewandowski: 20.95 passes per game (80% accurate)
Suárez: 27.55 passes per game (75.9% accurate)
Agüero: 25.16 passes per game (83.3% accurate)
Kane: 18.1 passes per game (75.5% accurate)
Benzema: 32.67 passes per game (84.1% accurate)

But who wins the most offensive duels, according to WyScout?

Lewandowski: 10.85 won per game (32.2%)
Suárez: 10.69 won per game (33.8%)
Agüero: 13.49 won per game (36%)
Kane: 12.87 won per game (33.2%)
Benzema: 8.62 won per game (36.5%)

Dribbling? WyScout says:

Lewandowski: 3.47 dribbles per game (43.1% successful)
Suárez: 4.88 dribbles per game (39% successful)
Agüero: 5.82 dribbles per game (49.7% successful)
Kane: 4.5 dribbles per game (45.8% successful)
Benzema: 3.46 dribbles per game (51.4% successful)

Who is best in the air? WyScout has it like this:

Lewandowski: 4.87 won per game (37.4% successful)
Suárez: 1.31 won per game (40.4% successful)
Agüero: 1.57 won per game (28.8% successful)
Kane: 5.32 won per game (35.5% successful)
Benzema: 2.72 won per game (35.1% successful)

They play in attacking sides, where striker is the first defender. WyScout shows that:

Lewandowski: 1.14 interceptions per game
Suárez: 1.56 interceptions per game
Agüero: 1 interception per game
Kane: 1.69 interceptions per game
Benzema: 1.37 interceptions per game

Small sample size,but this CL season shows how much they run on average:

Lewandowski: 10.34 km per game (360 min played)
Suárez: 9.10 km per game (270 min played)
Agüero: 6.84 km per game (196 min played)
Kane: 10.07 km per game (360 min played)
Benzema: 9.32 km (360 min played)

To understand how difficult this is to determined: these are the average heat maps (Wyscout) of Lewandowski (on the left) and Benzema (on the right). Two no.9s, but with a completely different way of playing the position

CONCLUSION: In terms of goalscoring and being a predator in front of goal, seems that Lewandowski is the obvious pick as a no.9. The goals show that. They also show that versatility is key, and the likes of Benzema has that in abundance. Who's the best? Depends on what you want

Sources: WyScout, WhoScored, TransferMarkt, UEFA, Squawka, Bayern's homepage, Spurs' homepage, City's homepage, Barcelona's homepage, Real Madrid's homepage