Ian Wright - Simply the BestThree years ago I made an attempt to compare Ian Wright's scoring
record with that of selected other strikers, and concluded that Wrighty
was the best striker in England in recent years. An era at Arsenal is
now over and Wright has moved on to pastures new, so as a tribute to the
great man, I have attempted to bring my analysis up to date to see
whether my thesis can still be proved. The original
article can be found immediately below, with the update
following further down the page.
As everybody knows Ian Wright's scoring record for Arsenal is quite extraordinary. In the four seasons he has been at Arsenal he has scored 30 or more goals in each, at an average of 0.68 goals per game. A record which I would think is unmatched in recent times.
League Lge Cup FA Cup ECWC CS Total
94/95 18 3 9 30
93/94 23 6 1 4 1 35
92/93 15 5 10 30
91/92 29* 2 31
* includes 5 for Crystal Palace
To ensure I really bore everybody, I've gone further and checked his record for Crystal Palace. It is not quite as extraordinary, but nonetheless still good. His total record for Palace was
Goals Appearances
League 89 225
League Cup 9 19
FA Cup 3 12
Others 16 22
Not entirely sure what Others includes, probably things like the Zenith Data Systems Cup (which Palace won in 90?, beating Everton 4-1 in the final, Wrighty getting 2). Anyway, if you include them, then Wright's overall record, up to the start of this season is something like:
Goals Appearances Average
League 169 356 0.47 goals/game
League Cup 25 37 0.68
FA Cup 14 24 0.58
Europe 13 17 0.76
Others 17 23 0.74
Total 238 457 0.521
Just as an exercise, I have also looked up the domestic records of three goalscorers who I consider to be the best in recent times. All numbers are up to the start of the 1995/96 season. Alan Shearer's record at Blackburn is quite astonishing, but while at Southampton his goalscoring was quite unremarkable (if you ignore that hattrick on his league debut). Putting the two together, I get:
Goals Appearances Average
League 104 221 0.47 goals/game
League Cup 20 30 0.67
FA Cup 6 20 0.30
Others 6 10 0.60
Total 136 281 0.48
I could only find Gary Lineker's total career record, but domestically (taking his international record improves his average a bit) it is:
Goals Appearances Average
274 551 0.50
Ian Rush has been consistently scoring for longer than any of them. Excluding his brief and unhappy period at Juventus, his record is:
Goals Appearances Average
League 238 484 0.49 goals/game
League Cup 47 76 0.62
FA Cup 41 62 0.66
Others 30 49 0.61
At Juventus he scored a total of 8 goals in 29 games, which gives a total career record of: Total 364 700 0.520 I therefore conclude that The Wright Man is simply the best.
Update: 1995-1998Since the 94/95 season, Wright and Shearer have continued scoring fairly regularly, although both had injury interrupted seasons last term. Rush however has experienced a severe goal drought since 1995 (only 12 goals in 79 appearances in 3 years) so drops out of the reckoning. However, there is one other similarly prolific striker in the last 4 years who must now be assessed - Robbie Fowler of Liverpool. Shearer's scoring record since 1995:
goals appearances
1995/96 37 49
1996/97 28 39
1997/98 7 21
Wright's scoring record since 1995:
goals appearances
1995/96 23 40
1996/97 30 41
1997/98 11 28
Fowler's career scoring record:
goals appearances
1993/94 19 34
1994/95 31 57
1995/96 23 40
1996/97 30 41
1997/98 11 28
So, taking the new statistics and adding them to the previous totals, we get:
goals appearances goals/game
Shearer 208 390 0.533
Wright 302 566 0.534
Fowler 130 216 0.602
Hmm, on the face of it I seem to have proved that Fowler has the best strike ratio. However, it has to be borne in mind that Fowler has spent his whole career playing for Liverpool, one of the top teams in the land, whereas Wright's early career was played out at Crystal Palace where fewer chances came his way. A fairer comparison would be with Wright's record at Arsenal. Doing this we get:
goals appearances goals/game
Wright 185 288 0.642
Fowler 130 216 0.602
QED - Ian Wright is still the best. Of course now that he has moved down in the football world as age begins to catch up with him, I suspect his overall record will deteriorate. But, in his years at Arsenal he was undoubtedly, simply the best. Derek Brownjohn Infidels have occasionally questioned Wright's relative scoring record against weak and strong defences. As always any answer is going to be somewhat subjective (ie how do you define weak and strong defences), but fired with zealous fervour and a mission to bore everybody into submission, I have compiled his goals record against each team he has played against (for Arsenal, up to the beginning of the 96/97 season). I would say there isn't really any evidence that Wrighty has trouble scoring against strong defences, though it is true that the most conspicuous of the teams he has had least success against is Manchester United. He has only scored one goal (in the Charity Shield) against them in eleven matches. The only other teams he has notably failed against are QPR (1 goal in 7 games), Blackburn (0 in 4) and Millwall (0 in 5). His record against other teams which one might claim to have had strong defences over the period he has been at Arsenal, such as Liverpool, Leeds, Nottm Forest, etc are reasonably good. His record against European defences is also pretty good - 13 goals in 17 games. His favourite defences are those of Everton, Southampton and Ipswich, against whom he has scored a total of 29 goals in 19 games. Perhaps the best way of characterising WWW's scoring habits is that he is more likely to score in important, one-off matches. For instance, in total he has scored 143 goals in 216 games for Arsenal, an average of 0.66 goals per game. However, if you split these up, in league games he has scored 94 goals in 159 games at 0.59, while in cup games it is an astonishing 49 goals in 57 games at 0.86. Almost a goal every game. Anyway, here is the full list. Draw your own conclusions.
goals games
Everton 10 6
Southampton 10 7
Ipswich Town 9 6
Sheffield Wed 7 11
Hartlepool United 6 3
Chelsea 6 9
Norwich City 6 9
Wimbledon 6 10
Aston Villa 6 10
Tottenham Hotspur 5 8
Crystal Palace 5 6
Nottingham Forest 5 7
Newcastle United 5 7
Leeds United 5 9
Oldham Athletic 4 5
West Ham United 4 7
Liverpool 4 9
Coventry City 4 10
Yeovil 3 1
Huddersfield Town 3 1
Leicester City 3 3
Sheffield United 3 6
Manchester City 3 6
Derby County 1 1
Notts County 1 2
Swindon Town 1 2
Bolton Wanderers 1 3
Middlesborough 1 4
Queens Park Rangers 1 7
Manchester United 1 11
Scarborough 0 1
Luton 0 2
Blackburn Rovers 0 4
Millwall 0 5
Odense 1 2
Standard Liege 2 1
Paris St Germain 1 2
Omonia Nicosia 3 2
Brondby 2 2
Auxerre 2 2
Sampdoria 2 2
Milan 0 2
Torino 0 1
Zaragoza 0 1
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