Beyond the Table: The Football Reality Check - Are We Overvaluing Goals?

We worship goals. But most matches are decided long before the shot.

Another weekend passes, the table shifts slightly, a striker grabs headlines, and the debate resets. Arsenal win, City grind one out, a winger scores twice, and suddenly the narrative hardens again.But the finish is the headline. The build up is the reality. If you only look at who scored this week, you miss who controlled the game.

The Problem With How We Measure Value

Fans and media still measure value through:

• goals

• assists

• headlines

That is it.

If a player scores fifteen, he is elite. If he blanks for two games, questions begin. The conversation moves with the scoreboard.

But goals are the final action in a chain. They are not the chain itself. Every goal sits on top of a structure: progression, positioning, tempo control, spacing. Those things rarely trend. Yet they decide matches long before the ball hits the net.

The Data

To understand who truly drives performance, you need different metrics:

• Progressive passes

• Expected threat

• Pre assist involvement

• Ball progression per 90

• Touches in zone 14

Progressive passes show who consistently moves the ball into dangerous territory.

Expected threat measures how much each action increases the probability of scoring.

Pre assist involvement captures the difficult pass before the assist.

Touches in zone 14 reveal who operates in football’s most valuable creative space.

These are repeatable actions. They are not dependent on one moment of finishing. That repeatability is value.

Finishing Output vs Game Control Influence

Jarrod Bowen dominates in goals. On the surface, that feels decisive. But Rodri and Toni Kroos sit far higher on the control axis. Their progressive passing and expected threat contributions shape games every week, whether or not they score. Finishing spikes. Control sustains.

Even in recent matches where attacking players grabbed headlines, the deeper numbers still show the same pattern: the teams dictating tempo and progression tend to control the match regardless of who finishes the move.

The contrast is clear. Bowen leads in goals. Rodri and Kroos dominate progression and territorial influence. One finishes moves. The others build them.

None of this dismisses elite finishing. Goals still win matches. The rare forwards who consistently outperform expected goals are incredibly valuable because they convert tight margins into points. Elite finishers change defensive behaviour simply by existing.

The argument is not that goals do not matter. It is that they are often isolated from the structures that produce them.

My Take

The players who control space are more valuable than the ones who finish moves. Remove a scorer and you can adjust shape.

Remove a controller and the entire system shifts.

Football is not just about the last touch. It is about who makes the last touch possible. Within five years, contracts will reward control as openly as they reward scoring. Recruitment departments already see it. They track progression, expected threat, and build up chains more closely than goal tallies.

Fans will still celebrate the finish.

But the future of valuation belongs to the architects.