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The Premier League's Most Prolific Striker According To Stats

The Premier League's Most Prolific Striker According To Stats

It may come as a surprise...

Josh Lawless

Josh Lawless

I'm a firm believer that statistics that don't always tell the full story when it comes to football.

They can be manipulated in certain ways to make certain players look better than others and the overuse of statistics in some instances does grind my gears.

But here I am writing a statistical piece, as after all they can be incredibly useful, help further back up a point, and justify why a certain player is or isn't in the team.

The statistic in this instance is the most prolific player in the Premier League, with data courtesy of EA Sports letting us know who is the most lethal in front of goal.

Romelu Lukaku is the top scorer with 21 goals, Harry Kane has netted 19, Alexis Sanchez has struck 18 time, Diego Costa has hit 17 in the Premier League and Zlatan Ibrahimovic has found the net 15 times in his first campaign in England.

However, when it comes to stats, the most prolific striker is Arsenal's Olivier Giroud.

Image: PA

The Frenchman has scored seven goals in the Premier League term and of all the players to have scored seven or more goals, he boasts the most impressive minutes per goal ratio in the league, with his eight goals in 770 minutes of action giving him an overall ratio of 97.1.

On the opposite side of North London, Spurs striker Harry Kane is the only other striker to have struck more than seven times and have a minutes per goal ratio less than 100 - with the England man having a ratio of 99.7.

Top scorer Romelu Lukaku is in third, Sergio Aguero, who has the best minutes per goal ration in Premier League history, is in fourth.

Giroud's Arsenal colleague Alexis Sanchez has the fifth highest ratio, with the Chilean getting on the scoresheet every 131.1 minutes.

The top five scorers in the Premier League all make the list, as Diego Costa and Zlatan Ibrahimovic both feature in the top ten.

Image: PA

Here is the list in full:

Giroud is joint second when it comes to the number of headed goals, with West Ham's Michail Antonio scoring one more than Giroud's five.

However, out of all players to have scored four headed goals, the former Montpellier man is at the top of the table in terms of the minutes per headed goal as he scores a goal with his head every 155.4 minutes.

That statistic becomes more impressive when you see that Islam Slimani, who is closest to Giroud in the minutes per headed goal department, takes just over an extra 90 minutes to score with his head.

Here is the full breakdown of headed goals:

Does Giroud deserve more credit? Should he got more of a look-in at Arsenal?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Data Courtesy of EA SPORTS, the Lead Partner of the Premier League.

Featured Image Credit:

Topics: Premier League, Olivier Giroud