Shot monsters: the most frequent shooters in Europe

Sometimes the equation is simple: more shots = more goals = more wins.

Sometimes football is very simple. Of course, luck will always play a part in the game, due to there being so many variables in the game of football. However, as a general rule, this equation pretty much rings true for the majority of the time: more shots = more goals = more wins.  

With that in mind - whilst we should never discount the importance of a good creative individual in a team, as well as a system that works to serve the team to get in positions to create chances - high-volume shooters are extremely valuable to a team. Generally, they are the players who provide the most regular goal-threat for their team or if they are more long-distance shooters, their threat from range can change the way an opponent defends, as space will be created for other players as they look to limit the threat of a quality long-range shooter.  

Here are the most frequent shooters in Europe’s top five leagues in 21/22, according to shots per 90. Stats 24 will use the stats to assess how effective they have been in taking that high-volume of shots: 

 

Robert Lewandowski - 4.8 shots per 90 

Many of the players we will look at in this list are generators of their own shots. Meaning that they take the ball from lower value positions and dribble before taking shots. That is not the case with Lewandowski.

The Bayern striker is served by the dominant team in Germany, with a highly effective system and a raft of excellent creators serving him chances. His movement in the box means he gets in position to get regular shots - almost 5 per game - and he has the highest shots on target % of this group as he hits the target 49% of the time.  

He also scored most often, as he scored his 35 Bundesliga goals at a rate of 0.19 goals per shot. This is unsurprising when considering that his xG was also the highest at 32.6 at a rate of 0.18 per shot.  

 

Lautaro Martinez - 4.38 shots per 90 

Inter’s Martinez is one of those players who generates more of his own shots, as although he is a striker, he plays deeper than Lewandowski and is more of a supporting than a player who will regularly occupy the area around the penalty spot like Lewandowski.  

Interestingly, he has the second-best accuracy of the players included in this list, hitting the target 42.3% of the time and scoring his 21 goals at a rate of 0.16 goals per shot. That came from an xG of 19.6 with his shot quality notably lower than Lewandowski’s at 0.14 but not suggesting that the majority of his shots are low value, long-distance efforts but that he is still regularly getting into dangerous positions to score.  

 

Mohamed Salah - 4.37 shots per 90 

Regular Premier League watchers won’t be surprised to see Salah ranked so highly in this list, given that he has a reputation of a player whose go-to action is to look for where he can get his shot away.  

However, despite his high volume of goals, Salah is one of the more wasteful players on this list, as he hit the target only 36.6% of the time in 21/22 and scored at a rate of 0.13 goals per shot.  

His 23 goals came from an xG of 21.8 though, so he did still outshoot his expectations. Also, despite his lesser accuracy, his xG of per shot of 0.13 suggests he was getting into very similar positions to Martinez, if not as good as Lewandowski.  

 

Kylian Mbappe - 4.29 shots per 90 

Another player that nobody will be surprised to see here is Mbappe. Despite featuring in the most starstudded attacking lineup in football, the Frenchman is the star of the attack and thus takes the most shots.  

Mbappe is a player who loves to drive with the ball from the left flank and take shots from in and around the edge of the box but he is not limited to those goals. His movement in the box is also excellent.  

His efficiency isn’t quite at the level of Lewandowski but he is a more effective shooter than Martinez or Salah, hitting the target 41.7% of the time and scoring his 28 goals at a rate of 0.17 per shot.  

His xG of 23.4 came at a rate of 0.14 per shot, making the quality of his chances almost the same as Martinez and Salah’s.

 

Paulo Dybala - 4.28 shots per 90 

Finally, Juventus’ departing forward, Dybala is the most wasteful of all the players on this list.  

The Argentine is much more of a distance shooter than the other four, with his average shot distance coming at 21.9 yards. Neither of the other four average above 17 yards in this metric. As such, his accuracy is way down, as he hit the target only 37.8% of the time and scored his 10 goals at by far the lowest rate at 0.09 goals per shot.  

That’s also reflected in his expected goals, with his 8.1xG significantly lower than the rest on this list. The poor quality of many of the chances is further demonstrated by the fact that he averaged 0.07 xG per shot.