Haaland, Sancho and the top five players by chance conversion rate this season
Erling Haaland has scored a Bundesliga goal every 57 minutes he has played for Borussia Dortmund since arriving from Red Bull Salzburg in the winter transfer window, but does he have the best chance conversion rate in the league?
bundesliga.com takes a closer look at the top five players who can find the target even when clear-cut chances are at a premium…
5) Patrik Schick (RB Leipzig) - 4.1 shots per goal
Timo Werner may be Robert Lewandowski's closest pursuer in the race for the Torjägerkanone - the trophy awarded to the season's top scorer - but the 21-goal striker isn't even necessarily the deadliest marksman at Leipzig.
Schick joined Julian Nagelsmann's side on loan from Roma in January and has quickly established himself at the Red Bull Arena, often leading the line on his own with Werner and Christopher Nkunku playing off him.
The Czech isn't simply a hold-up player either, having helped himself to seven goals in his 15 appearances so far, which has included strikes against Borussias Dortmund and Mönchengladbach as well as Bayer Leverkusen.
4) Breel Embolo (Borussia Mönchengladbach) - 4.1 shots per goal
Embolo has quite some competition for an attacking berth at Gladbach, with Marcus Thuram, Alassane Plea and club captain Lars Stindl for company in the final third, but he has been worth his weight in goals when he has played.
Considered one of the most promising young attackers in Europe when he broke through at Basel, hopes were high when Schalke acquired the Cameroon-born Switzerland international in 2016. Ten goals in 48 games with no shortage of injuries in between followed, and his subsequent move to the Foals was seen as a fresh start.
Although he requires exactly the same number of shots per goal as Schick, Embolo edges the Leipzig man by virtue of having played 229 more minutes, therefore having more time for his ratio to slow down… and that's still accounting for the disallowed goal which would have turned Embolo's brace into a hat-trick against Freiburg on Matchday 13.
Watch: Highlights of Gladbach's 4-2 win over Freiburg
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3) Jadon Sancho (Borussia Dortmund) - 3.3 shots per goal
The only player on this list who isn't a centre-forward, it speaks volumes for Sancho's quality that as well as being the second-best assister this season after Bayern Munich's Thomas Müller - with 15 goals laid on compared to the Raumdeuter's 16 - he is also among the most prolific converters of chances.
Even more incredible is that Sancho, unlike the other players on this list, has played nearly every game this season, missing just two of Die Schwarzgelben's 25 Bundesliga fixtures. The first player in any of Europe's five major leagues per UEFA coefficient to tally double figures for goals and assists, Sancho's 14 strikes have come from just 46 shots.
Just days past his 20th birthday Sancho already looks like a generational talent, and in recent weeks and months, he's had another teammate getting his teenaged kicks at BVB - the next player on this list…
Watch: Sancho and Haaland getting their teenaged kicks at Dortmund
2) Erling Haaland (Dortmund) - 2.1 shots per goal
"Haaland is the type of striker we really needed, we're really happy to have him," so said Axel Witsel after Haaland became the first player in Bundesliga history to score nine goals in his first six league outings. "He doesn't need many chances to score. He's a killer."
The 19-year-old Norwegian goal-fiend has hit the ground running since swapping Red Bull Salzburg for the Signal Idunal Park in the winter transfer window, the global coronavirus pandemic seemingly the only thing that could have possibly slowed the flow of his goals.
Also the second-top scorer in the UEFA Champions League behind Lewandowski, Haaland brought his tally to 10 in this season's competition with a brace against Paris Saint-Germain in the last 16.
The PSG goals may have grabbed headlines, but no strike encapsulates Haaland's ability to score with almost half of his shots better than his second in BVB's 5-1 thrashing of Cologne on Matchday 19. The pace to latch onto the ball ahead of Timo Horn is one thing, but just look at the angle he converts from…
Watch: Highlights of Dortmund's 5-1 win over Cologne (skip to 01:38 for Haaland's second goal)
1) Lars Stindl (Gladbach) - 2.0 shots per goal
Incredibly, Haaland is still not the outright number one when it comes to chance conversion, that honour instead going to Bundesliga veteran Stindl.
It has been a frustrating campaign for the thoroughbred Foal, watching on from the sidelines with a fractured shin when his side were setting the pace in the league and only returning in late October, by which point they were chasing Leipzig and then Bayern.
Stindl has since taken his tally to six goals in 16 games, only seven of which have been starts. With him and Embolo on his books, Marco Rose has a very welcome selection headache after the restart.
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