Thuram, Dembele and answers to Manchester United's striker question

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Putting the ball in the net is what football is all about. And while there is undoubtedly a skill and an art to finishing chances, how well a player does will always be slightly random.

Look at Roberto Firmino – only three players have scored more away goals in the 2019/20 Premier League, yet he hasn’t scored at Anfield.

We can still assess which players are doing all they can to improve their chances of scoring though. Expected goals – a model which assigns a value to a shot based on the historic likelihood of a similar chance being converted – is based on what happens prior to the goal attempt taking place.

We can compare that to post-shot expected goals, which also factors where within the goal frame the shot ends up, to see which