Frank Lampard wrecked the grade curve for midfielders with the number of goals he scored for Chelsea. His current midfielders, like their peers across the Premier League, are scoring less, perhaps because they are passing their way out of worthwhile shots.
We’ve said before that those of us who came to know football by watching Chelsea in the late 2000s and early 2010s have a skewed idea of what midfielders can and should do. If Frank Lampard is the first box-to-box midfielder you watch regularly, you can be forgiven for thinking a 20-goal season is de rigeur for the position.
The Telegraph’s Daniel Zeqiri pointed out earlier in the week that no contemporary midfielders are coming anywhere close to the goal output of recent players like Lampard and Steven Gerrard. The three highest scoring midfielders in the Premier League each have seven goals, with Chelsea’s Mason Mount among the top eight most prolific midfielders with five goals.
Zeqiri speculates this may stem in part from the analytics-based coaching methods that downplay long-range shooting. Shots from the areas of the pitch where midfielders play have a low probability of scoring (that is, low expected goals). Coaches may discourage their midfielders from taking those shots – or outright order them not to take them – instead directing them to try to work the ball into a position where a shot has a higher probability of becoming a goal. Anyone who has watched Chelsea play tippy-tappy keep-ball in a U-shaped pattern around the box or try to pass the ball into the net in a quixotic search for The Perfect Shot knows this phenomena quite well.
Some data support Zeqiri’s idea. In 2009/10, Frank Lampard took 82 shots from outside the box: 58% of his total. Last season, Ruben Neves led the Premier League in shots from outside the box with 72. Where Lampard scored 22 goals in 2009/10, Neves scored four last year. Behind Neves were two players better known for creativity and offence: Christian Eriksen and James Maddison, each with 83 total shots; 53 and 57, respectively, from out of the box.
The top-scoring midfielders this season cover a wide range of the percentage of their shots from outside the box. Todd Cantwell and Dele Alli have both taken less than one-third of their shots from long range, whereas James Maddison is at 60% and Jonjo Shelvey at 80%.
But those numbers shade the full story. Shelvey took the fewest total shots (25) of the players on the list, Alli and Cantwell took the fewest from outside the box (8) and Sheffield United’s John Fleck is down there on the low end of the shots scale but is smack in the middle on the percentage of shots from distance at 50%.
Given all that variation, the eight players on the list show no real pattern for expected goals or xG per shot. Mason Mount has the second-highest xG at 5.4, behind only Cantwell’s 5.6. But Mount is the only player underperforming his xG, although he does so by less than one goal. Shelvey is tied for fewest goals of the eight, but is the biggest xG overperformer.
Last season, Derby County overperformed their xG and expectations overall by taking and scoring many long range shots. The Rams scored 13 of their 69 goals from outside the box. Harry Wilson had seven goals from distance, followed by Mount with two. Wilson took a Lampard-ian 67% of his shots from outside the box, while Mount was at 52%, exactly what he is doing this season.
| Goals | Shots | Shots outside box | Goals outside box | xG/shot | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kevin De Bruyne | 7 | 71 | 42 | 3 | .06 |
| Dele Alli | 7 | 29 | 8 | 0 | .16 |
| Jack Grealish | 7 | 51 | 18 | 1 | .10 |
| James Maddison | 6 | 58 | 35 | 4 | .07 |
| Todd Cantwell | 6 | 36 | 8 | 0 | .16 |
| Mason Mount | 5 | 59 | 31 | 0 | .09 |
| John Fleck | 5 | 26 | 13 | 0 | .12 |
| Jonjo Shelvey | 5 | 25 | 20 | 2 | .07 |
| Frank Lampard (2009/10) | 22 | 141 | 82 | 1 | N/A |
Source: whoscored.com, fbref.com
So what’s the bottom line of all this? Well, the analytics folks may have a point.
The eight-highest scoring midfielders this season combine for 48 goals. Of those, 10 came from outside the box, but only four players accounted for those 10. They scored those 10 goals from 175 shots: a success rate of less than 1%.
In 2009/10, Frank Lampard scored only one goal of his 22 from outside the box. Since he needed 82 shots for that one goal, his rate was even less than the Premier League’s best this season.
As is often the case, the analytics provide a useful point of departure. Shots from range are as quantifiably unlikely to score as everybody who watches the game knows they are.
But unlikely does not mean ever, and sometimes the long range shot is the best shot available, either in the moment or over the run of the game. Whether a player spies a shooting lane or feels he can loop something up and over the defenders into the top corner, or he is simply frustrated with his teammates’ repetitive passing around the box and overplaying within the box, a long-range shot may be exactly what the game needs.
Players should be taught to make the right decisions, not to follow scripts and circuits. That starts with recognizing the situation, such as those where a long-range shot may be not just a backup option but the best option.
No one ever faulted Frank Lampard for shooting too much. A shot from range can set off a series of events as the ball pings around the box, forces the defenders to turn towards their goal, shifts the offside line back and maybe forces the goalkeeper out of position. The end result of that initial low probability shot is then a high probability shot for one of the forwards, or maybe a medium probability shot from 15 yards on a late run from the same midfielder who took that first shot, who buries it in the net.
Sound familiar? If so, I think I know when you started watching Chelsea.