Chelsea: Alvaro Morata is PL’s most-balanced striker in goals-by-body-part

Alvaro Morata and Chelsea lead the Premier League for headed goals. Morata’s aerial game is a relatively new addition to his scoring repertoire, making him one of the most balanced strikers in the league.

Alvaro Morata’s three misses against Arsenal set the narrative for the week. Each of his misses came off of his right foot, raising some questions about whether Morata is only effective in the air. Plenty of “but Diego!, “even Lukaku!” and “as bad as Lukaku!” choked Chelsea-related Twitter streams during and after the game at the Emirates.

Alvaro Morata and Romelu Lukaku do, in fact, have much in common in how they score their goals. And yes, they do score plenty of goals despite the occasional howler misses. Of the Premier League’s top seven scorers, Morata and Lukaku have the best distribution of which body parts they use to score.

Over the course of their first team careers, Morata and Lukaku have scored just over 50% of their goals with their primary body part: right foot and left foot, respectively. Both players score about 20% of their goals with their least-used body parts: left foot (Morata) and head (Lukaku).

No other player among the leading scorers is as prolific with their least-favoured body part as Alvaro Morata and Romelu Lukaku. The distribution is laughable for some of their fellow front-men. Raheem Sterling has scored a single Premier League or European competition goal – 1 of his 54 – with his head. His teammate Sergio Aguero has scored only 8% of his goals since 2009 in La Liga, the Premier League and in Europe with his head: 16 of 194.

Prior to 2016/17, Alvaro Morata had scored six total goals with his head in club competition. Last season, he scored six of his 15 La Liga goals (40%) and one of his three Champions League goals with his head. This season he has already matched both marks, and the proportion of headed goals is up to 60% in the Premier League.

Far from being a single-capability striker, Alvaro Morata brings Chelsea a more complete threat package than most his peers. Whereas opposing defences do not need to control the aerial game into Raheem Sterling and Mohamed Salah, or can try to shepherd Wayne Rooney onto his left foot (11% of his goals), they must defend both sides and the air against Alvaro Morata.

This is particularly important for Chelsea, given the shortness of their wingers and the crossing abilities of Marcos Alonso, Cesc Fabregas and – recently – Cesar Azpilicueta. As Chelsea saw during Morata’s recent absence, their offence loses a significant potency when Morata is not in the lineup. Without an aerially-strong target man in the centre of the pitch, Chelsea reap much less value from their playmakers and struggle to break down conventionally dense English defences.

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The only other striker who offers as much as Morata is the man Chelsea had once and nearly had again: Romelu Lukaku. Why, it’s almost as if Chelsea knew what they wanted – and needed – in a striker.

Data viz by Dan Clark.