Premier League English

United’s 18-year-old Mason Greenwood leads Premier League in shots on target percentage

Manchester United’s phenomenal 18-year-old Mason Greenwood heads the charts in the Premier League for percentage of shots on target this season.

The phenomenal 18-year-old has scored twelve goals and provided two assists in 36 appearances for the Red Devils this season. Remarkably, many of his creditable efforts came from the bench with nearly all of which came from playing on the right wing rather than his natural centre forward position.

Greenwood’s results are testimony in themselves, according to football statistic site fbref.com, backed up by some equally impressive statistics.

The impressive youngster has hit an incredible 57.1% of his 21 shots on target in the Premier League this season, the most of any player in any club, with Chelsea’s Emerson Palmieri second on 53.8% (7 out of 13 shots on target) and Leicester’s Jamie Vardy third on 52.6% (30 of 57 shots).

United’s next most accurate shooter is Anthony Martial, whose percentage is 47.5%, placing him 13th in the league.

Greenwood is also grouped in the top four players in the goals per shot statistic, registering 0.24 of a goal per shot (or 4.17 shots needed to score a goal). Vardy tops this category with a slightly better 0.26 (3.84 shots per goal), with Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Arsenal’s Martinelli both on 0.25 (4 shots per goal).

The United wunderkind is also comfortably ensconced in the league’s top ten in the goals minus expected goals statistic, having scored 2.9 more goals than would be expected from the chances received. Arsenal’s Aubameyang tops that statistic with 5.7.

The figures testify to how well the youngster has done in his breakthrough season, coming on the back of the recent report that the academy graduate has achieved more in terms of goals and assists than Marcus Rashford, Wayne Rooney and Lionel Messi had at the same age.

With the right expert tutelage and careful handling, you would not bet against the promising Greenwood developing into one of the world’s best strikers in the near future.