Glenn Murray: Flash in the Pan or Real Deal?
This week it was announced that Wayne Rooney will come out of international retirement to play one more game for England in their friendly against the USA on November 15th. The game at Wembley, designated as the “Wayne Rooney Foundation International” by the FA, has now morphed into part fundraiser for Rooney’s charitable foundation and part one last hurrah for England’s record goalscorer, who will earn his 120th cap in a brief cameo from the bench. But, while this has understandably grabbed the attention of the English football sphere, perhaps there’s another balding striker in his mid-thirties who warrants a surprise inclusion in the next England squad…
Glenn Murray finished this weekend as the joint-top English goalscorer in the Premier League, tied with Raheem Sterling and Callum Wilson on 6 goals with 11 matches played. This in itself isn’t that shocking: Murray finish last season with 12 goals — behind only Kane, Vardy, and Sterling in terms of English players. What is remarkable though is that Murray’s 6 goals this season have come from only 7 shots on target.
So far, when Murray has had a shot on target, it has gone in ~85% of the time. That’s staggeringly clinical. The Brighton striker has played 843 minutes this season, meaning that he’s taken roughly 1.5 shots per 90 minutes, 0.75 of which have been on target per 90, and scored 0.6 goals per 90. Therefore, if Murray played 90 minutes in the remaining 27 Premier League games and continued to hit shots on target and score those shots at his current rate, he’d finished the 18/19 season with just over 27 shots on target and… 22 goals.
That’s not going to happen.
To contextualise just how ruthlessly efficient Murray’s been thus far, it’s worth comparing his current performance with those of his most talented contemporaries and also his own historical performance.
You’d find few people who would disagree with the claim that Harry Kane, Sergio Agüero, Lionel Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo are the finest goalscorers the modern game has to offer. Here’s how each of those players did last season in terms of shots on target conversion rate (league games only):
Agüero — Shots on Target: 42/Goals: 21/ Conversion Rate: 50%
Kane — SoT: 76/ G: 30/ CR: 39.4%
Ronaldo — SoT: 77/ G: 25/ CR: 32.4%
Messi — SoT: 96/ G:34/ CR: 35.4%
Agüero played less football than the others on this list (1969 minutes, the equivalent of nearly 22 full 90 minute matches) but his conversion rate, combined with his shooting volume, is utterly ridiculous across the span of a whole season and shows just how outlandish Glenn Murray’s hot streak is at the minute.
To look at it another way, he’s currently finishing his chances more than twice as well as Harry Kane did last season. Alternatively, if Lionel Messi finished at the same rate that Glenn Murray currently is, Messi would’ve scored 81 league goals last year.
As if that didn’t illustrate how much of an anomaly this season has been for Murray so far, it’s worth briefly considering how his form stacks up with his previous performances, just to get an idea of how much he’s overperforming right now (*= Championship season, rather than Premier League):
17/18 Brighton — Shots on Target: 25/ Goals:12 /Conversion Rate: 48%
16/17 Brighton* — SoT: 45/ G: 23/ CR: 51%
15/16 Bournemouth/Palace — SoT: 14/ G:1/ CR: 7%
14/15 Palace — SoT: 19/ G:3/ CR: 15%
14/15 Reading* — SoT: 18/ G: 3/ CR: 17%
13/14 Palace — SoT: 3/ G:1/ CR: 33%
There’s quite a lot of variation in terms of the minutes played season-to-season for Murray, so it would probably be better to look at this on a per 90 basis, but I thought it was worth looking at the raw numbers, as the amount of time he’s spent on the pitch (especially in his earlier Premier League seasons) are a reflection of the level of his performances in those games.
Last year, his conversion rate was akin to Agüero’s, albeit on half the volume of shots. Whether it’s down to simply playing more regularly as a starter, playing in a system and under a manager that gets the best out of his skillset, an improvement in technique, getting smarter about the shots he’s taking, or the wisdom of age, is unclear but there is a massive jump in his efficiency since joining Brighton at the start of the 16/17 season. Prior to that he’d been a largely quite wasteful player who had struggled to make an impact at the highest level of English football. Even if you take that jump to mean that Murray’s improved hugely as a player over the last two seasons compared to the rest of his career, his conversion rate historically is still way, way below what he’s been shooting so far this year.
That’s not to say that this is a complete fluke. As we can see from Paul Riley’s 18/19 Premier League Shot Dashboard, Glenn Murray’s shot locations are excellent — almost all of them originating from within the width of the posts, the majority within 12 yards from goal, with a handful on the edge of the 6-yard box:
Those locations are a testament to Murray’s predatory instincts and his off the ball movement inside the box; if he continues to take shots like this, he’ll continue to score goals. The issue is that he’s not taking them at a high enough volume for him to continue scoring the amount of goals his current red-hot rate suggests. It’s unsustainable.
It is worth mentioning that Brighton have had a difficult start to the season in terms of fixtures — in their first 11 games, they’ve already played Manchester United (H), Liverpool (A), Tottenham (H), Manchester City (A), and Everton (A) — and that Murray was substituted after a clash in their away game at Newcastle, a match that Murray would likely have had some decent chances in. It also has be acknowledged that Brighton have manufactured these chances for Murray without their primary creative hub of last season, Pascal Groß. When Groß returns from injury, there’s every chance that the volume of Murray’s shots ramps up and he continues scoring. He won’t convert 85% of his shots on target like he currently is, but if he’s getting on the end of more chances, he’ll be a solid provider of goals again this season for the Seagulls.
An England call-up would be unwarranted given the circumstances of his form and given that he’s not the right fit for Gareth Southgate’s tactical set up or his ethos of building for the future. Still, Glenn Murray has been an excellent finisher and a good striker for Brighton in his last two seasons. Just not quite this good.
