There have been 6003 shots in this season’s Premier League and 664 goals, which means, broadly speaking, that one in every nine attempts ends up in the net.

Things aren’t quite that simple, of course — many players have attempted more than nine shots and yet remain goalless for 2019-20. Here’s the five worst offenders in ascending order, and why they’re failing to score…

1. Theo Walcott, 26 shots



Walcott’s shot look map looks somewhat damning — these are exactly the type of positions Walcott wants to shoot from, the positions he’s made a career of converting chances from. When you study footage, however, something becomes clear.

Whereas during his Arsenal days, Walcott was a specialist at running in behind the defence to receive a through-ball played between left-back and left-sided centre-back, he isn’t receiving that type of pass at Everton. Instead, Walcott is generally receiving the ball on the outside of the opposition left-back and is forced to control the ball into a relatively wide position before shooting, usually aiming for a shot across the goalkeeper into the far post.

There’s a sense that Walcott needs a good pass to score — when the ball has come at him slightly awkwardly, on the bounce or just behind him, his attempts to engineer a shot from a difficult body position are often rather clumsy. Similarly, his first touch can sometimes let him down. This situation against Brighton, when Richarlison drove the ball across the box, seemed a good chance…



…but his touch was too heavy and Mat Ryan rushed out quickly to close down the angle.



Walcott has been a little unfortunate — a rasping drive at home to West Ham from long range smacked the crossbar and his deflected shot away at Manchester City on New Year’s Day created a goal for Richarlison. We’re still waiting, however, for Walcott to get off the mark.

2. Emiliano Buendia, 29 shots



Norwich playmaker Buendia has been amongst the most creative players in this season’s Premier League — only Kevin De Bruyne and Trent Alexander-Arnold have racked up more assists and nobody has played more successful through balls. The Argentine has performed admirably during his first top-flight campaign in English football and there’s a good chance he’ll still be a Premier League footballer next season, even if Norwich are not.

What Buendia lacks, however, is a goal. It’s not for want of trying.

Buendia has sometimes been guilty of not shooting quickly enough, however. Here’s a good example from Norwich’s meeting with Aston Villa. When Buendia receives this pass, he’s 25 yards out, in a good amount of space, and his first touch gets the ball out of his body and into a shooting position.



But rather than pulling the trigger, Buendia feels the need to take two extra touches, moving the ball closer towards goal but also allowing himself less space. When he finally shoots, he hammers the ball against Tyrone Mings.



Buendia could also look to receive the ball in behind the defence more frequently, to get himself in clearer shooting situations. Many of his attempts come after quick-footed dribbles into traffic, where he doesn’t have space or time to compose himself and strike the ball cleanly, and many of his shots are blocked. Despite his somewhat wasteful finishing, however, it’s difficult to be too critical of a player who has recorded so many assists.

3. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg – 32 shots



When Hojbjerg made his Southampton debut at the start of 2016-17, the BBC’s match report featured a small panel on him and his fellow debutants. “The Danish midfielder was not afraid to shoot,” it read. You can say that again.

While Hojbjerg has occasionally produced a rabbit from the hat — most notably a powerful opener in a 2-2 draw with Brighton last season — more often than not, his long-range efforts are entirely futile. There’s one root cause here: Hojbjerg simply can’t resist a ball that sits up nicely for him. Take this scuffed effort against Norwich…



…or this sliced effort on the volley against Tottenham from Nathan Redmond’s deep corner…



…or this ludicrously overhit attempt against Chelsea.



Many of these are from the same type of situation: corners cleared to the edge of the box. There have only been a couple of efforts where Hojbjerg should have scored, most notably this miss away at Villa Park when he led a fine counter-attack, passed left to Danny Ings, and then almost seemed too exhausted to sort his feet out and convert the rebound.



Most of his efforts are from further out, though. Sooner or later, a corner will be cleared and Hojbjerg will thump one into the top corner. Whether that justifies how often he attempts it, however, is another question.

4. Fred, 33 shots



Manchester United’s Brazilian midfielder Fred has received a reasonable amount of praise for his improvement from last season and he’s generally played solidly alongside Scott McTominay, sitting in deep positions and helping to protect the defence. His distribution from deep has also largely been effective — simple balls out towards the flanks, where United’s most dangerous attackers are often positioned.

Fred is, however, absolutely infuriating in the final third because he incessantly takes low-value shots. Of his 33 efforts this season, 22 have been shots with an xG of 0.03 or less and only eight have forced a save from the goalkeeper. There’s been a few blocked efforts but over half have missed the goal entirely, often by a huge margin.

These have usually come in two different situations. The first is when he’s been lingering on the edge of the box after a corner and a clearance has come his way — this happened three times alone in a 3-1 win at Norwich in October — or when he’s found himself free for a pass inside from the flanks, when the opposition midfield have retreated into their own box. His two attempts in the recent 2-0 loss to Liverpool were more forgivable, as these came when Fred broke through the opposition press into a decent position before shooting — he appeared well-suited to that type of game.

And while Fred isn’t wasting glorious opportunities where he clearly should have scored, he’s conceding possession wastefully, failing to advance the ball into more promising locations for others to shoot from. Fred is also without an assist this season and while his xA (expected assists) of 1.8 suggests this is a slightly harsh reflection upon his passing, perhaps he would have created a goal had he concentrated upon playing the ball into team-mates rather than incessantly having potshots at goal.

Fred does at least have the confidence to shoot from long range with both feet but some of his attempts have been truly hopeless. Twice, he’s miscued the ball so badly that he’s ended up accidentally playing a pass to Marcus Rashford. This dragged shot against Manchester City would have ended up being a useful pass if Rashford wasn’t offside…



…while this badly sliced attempt against Tottenham ended up being an inadvertent crossfield pass that Trent Alexander-Arnold would have been proud of.



There are too many wayward attempts to go through individually but perhaps below is the most damning, in the 2-0 defeat at Arsenal. Fred is being closed down quickly by several Arsenal players and completely ignores the option of slipping in Andreas Pereira, free on the right, and instead hammers the ball at David Luiz. This illustrates the downside of him shooting so much — he’s wasting good situations in the final third.



Pereira can’t be too critical, however. He’s managed just one goal from 35 attempts this season. Even that was somewhat fortunate — his left-footed shot in a 3-1 victory over Brighton took a crazy deflection off Dale Stephens and looped past Mat Ryan. Pereira was arguably fortunate to be awarded that goal and therefore, lucky to escape being on this list.

5. David McGoldrick, 36 shots



The most startlingly goalless player in the Premier League, however, is unquestionably Sheffield United forward McGoldrick. In basic terms, he’s attempted the most shots without scoring this season — 36. But that doesn’t entirely do justice to McGoldrick’s baffling failure to score a single goal. That’s only three more shots than Fred has taken but, whereas the Brazilian midfielder has an xG of just 1.3, McGoldrick’s is an incredible 6.2.

McGoldrick has actually enjoyed a very good campaign for the Blades. In a system that has attracted attention primarily for Chris Wilder’s use of overlapping centre-backs to overload wide positions, McGoldrick’s movement into deeper and wider zones has been crucial in Sheffield United’s passing patterns and many of their best moves have involved him contributing to build-up play by moving away from opposition centre-backs.

It would be simple, then, to conclude that the reason McGoldrick hasn’t found the target is because he’s not in the right positions. But the aforementioned xG disproves that argument. McGoldrick has found himself in better goalscoring positions than the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Richarlison, Ayoze Perez, Jack Grealish, Riyad Mahrez and Dele Alli, all of whom have scored at least seven times this season.

What’s going wrong for McGoldrick, then?

From looking at his 36 shots, there seem to be three major conclusions.

First, when played in behind the defence, generally in the right channel, McGoldrick has generally been striking the ball very well. There’s arguably a lack of finesse in his finishes — he focuses on steadying himself and hitting through the ball with great power but that doesn’t seem to do Sergio Aguero any harm. To use the old commentary cliche, McGoldrick has sometimes been hitting the ball ‘too well’ — there have been some thunderbolts driven just over the bar when more minimal contact might have sent it in. He’s also managed to drive the ball straight at the goalkeeper, when cutting across the ball would have been preferable.



Second, McGoldrick’s xG total is arguably a slightly unfair reflection of the difficulty of his chances. The xG calculation takes into account the body part the shot was struck with, the position the shot was assisted from and the position of the assist. On a couple of occasions, xG makes the chance look almost unmissable but the ball has come at an awkward height or with McGoldrick slightly on the stretch. Take this chance at a second ball at a set-piece situation against West Ham, where he has to attempt a volleyed backheel on the turn…



…or this chance on the stretch against Crystal Palace, when McGoldrick can only side-foot the ball straight at Vicente Guaita.



And then, third, there’s a sense that McGoldrick’s barren run is starting to affect his confidence. That was most obvious for his most shocking miss of the season in a 1-0 win over Brighton in September, when he capitalised on an Andy Webster mistake, rounded the goalkeeper and then, when presented with an empty net, managed to feebly side-foot the ball into the sidenetting.



That wasn’t the finish of a player who bagged 15 in the Championship last season.

But McGoldrick has the right idea, and general lesson of xG is that getting into scoring positions is the most important thing — the goals will eventually come. As the saying goes, McGoldrick just needs one to go in off his backside. Other players on this list, however, might need to reconsider their whole approach to shooting.