Who is the most decisive striker in the Premier League?

3:19pm on Wednesday 16th December 2020
By Martin Macdonald

The 2020/21 Premier League is proving to be closely-contested, especially in the championship race.

At the moment, Tottenham lead the way ahead of Liverpool on goal difference after collecting 25 points from their opening 12 matches, with Leicester in third on 24, Southampton in fourth on 23, and Chelsea on 22.

Man City, West Ham, Everton, Man Utd, and Wolves are all on 20 points.

With so little points between the top teams, key players are being called upon to be the difference makers in games to gain just a slight edge in the table.

FootballCritic defines ‘decisive’ as a goal that changed the match state into the state in which it ended.

This means that if a player scored an equaliser to earn a point for their team, or a winning goal to claim all three points, that would be classed as a decisive goal.

In terms of pure goalscoring, Dominic Calvert-Lewin leads the charts with 11 goals scored so far.

2020/21 Premier League Golden Shoe Race

Player	Team	Goals
Dominic Calvert-Lewin	Everton	11
Heung-min Son	Tottenham	10
Jamie Vardy	Leicester	10
Mohamed Salah	Liverpool	10
Harry Kane	Tottenham	9

At the moment the most decisive strikers in the player in the Premier League in terms of most decisive goals are Tottenham's Heung-min Son and Newcastle's Callum Wilson, both of whom have scored five goals which could be defined as being decisive.

Most Decisive Goals in Premier League

Player	Team	Goals	Decisive Goals
Heung-min Son	Tottenham	10	5
Callum Wilson	Newcastle	7	5
Jamie Vardy	Leicester	10	4
Wilfried Zaha	Crystal Palace	7	4
Bruno Fernandes	Man Utd	7	4

The Premier League's current top scorer Calvert Lewin has 11 goals to his name so far, but only three of these have been decisive for Everton, coming in the 1-1 draw against Burnley, the 2-2 draw against Liverpool, and the 1-0 away win against Tottenham on the opening day of the season.

He has scored just one decisive goal in a match in which Everton have actually won this season.

Son and Wilson may be matched in how many decisive goals they have scored in the league so far with five each, but in terms of a goals-to-decisive-goals ratio, the Newcastle striker has the best percentage of anyone in the top five.

71% of his goals so far have been decisive for Newcastle, while only 50% of Son's have.

Jamie Vardy may be notching up the goals for Leicester again in 2020/21, but only 40% of his 10 goals have been decisive in the outcome of the match for the Foxes.

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