Mason Greenwood, Jesse Lingard, Timo Werner, and Brighton:

A lesson in sustainable finishing

I decided to make this thread due to a general lack of understanding from football fans about sustainable finishing. Gasipo already made an excellent thread about this, and I’d reccommend checking it out. I wanted to make this thread to talk about 4 examples from right now https://twitter.com/gasipo_opinions/status/1369799984074350598

Something which I think football fans don’t understand is that very few players are elite or poor finishers. As Gasipo pointed out in his thread, even players like Suarez, Benzema, and Ronaldo haven’t typically over performed thier xG over long periods of time https://twitter.com/gasipo_opinions/status/1369800019092594694

It’s extremely difficult to know if a player is a good or bad finisher. Players just happen to have good/bad finishing years out of nowhere, so you have to have a VERY large sample size. The only players I can confidently say are elite finishers are Messi, Son and Kane.

Even someone like Christian Benteke, who has typically been a bad finisher, is having an average finishing year. Why? Because, as much as some people hate xG, it’s extremely accurate, and in the long run, goals do even out with the xG

So why is that relevant to Greenwood, Lingard, Werner, and Brighton?

Why don’t we start with Lingard and Greenwood first. Mason Greenwood, in his breakout year last season, scored 10 league goals at just 19, meanwhile Lingard has already scored 8 league NP goals for West Ham

So they must brilliant goal scorers right?

Well, not exactly. Greenwood averaged just 0.25 NPxG per 90 last season, and Lingard has averaged 0.3. Finishing at that level is EXTREMELY unsustainable, and sure enough Greenwood has come back to Earth this season.

Meanwhile, Brighton and Werner are on the other end of the spectrum, with both having famously struggled to finish this year. So does this mean Brighton need to sign new strikers, and that Chelsea should replace Werner after just one season?

NO

Absolutely they should not

Werner and Brighton’s forwards are NOT bad finishers. Barely any forwards are. They can buy a new forward, but that forward is just as likley to have a bad finishing year out of nowhere, the way Werner and Brighton’s forwards just happened to this season

The point of this thread is to explain that unless someone has consistently over performed or under performed for a really long sample size, they’re probably not much of an above/below average finisher

In the case of someone like Lingard or Greenwood, we need to realize that the most sustainable way to score goals consistently is to get into high quality goal scoring positions. Neither of them have, so the way Greenwood’s has, I would expect Lingard’s goal return to drop off

In the case of Werner and literally all of Brighton’s forwards, the goals will come. They’ve finished poorly this year, but that won’t continue forever.

(Note about Werner: His struggles have mainly been because of his finishing, missed chances won’t go in in any league)