Analysing goals from midfield in the modern game compared to the past
The late run into the box, the archetypal run from midfield to find space and score, we’ve seen this play out in the past & even now — the ball goes wide or in a halfspace pocket, and when it’s played in, midfielders making late runs into the box get on the end of it and put it in the back of the net.
Difficult to track and difficult to defend against, perhaps no player typified this and scored as consistently from this play more than Chelsea legend Frank Lampard.
But as old theories give way to new, are we seeing a decline of goals from midfield or more goals from midfield, especially from late runners into the box?
The breed of midfield goal scorers, Kevin De Bruyne and Bruno Fernandes, paved the way for the shift in goals from midfielders, slowly incrementing from the class before them.
But in the class ahead of them, as of 2025, are we beginning to see midfielders decline or improve in this particular aspect of the game?
The stats from the past tell the story. Lampard is a clear outlier, of course, but De Bruyne and Bruno Fernandes are in the 100+ bracket when it comes to goals from midfield.
Gerrard, Scholes and Lampard, to a certain degree as well, were notoriously famous for smashing it in from 30 yards. And you could argue De Bruyne & Fernandes could do that as well. But that’s not where the bulk of their goals came from. It’s from finding space in the box (except Scholes probably).
It is particularly impactful to view their goals per 90 minutes. This evens out the number of goals these players have amassed based on their output per game and creates a barometer to measure it. What we see is that these players averaged goals between 0.26 to 0.34 per game. But they’re only the top 5.
On a seasonal average, i.e. multiplying their goals per 90 x 38, and averaging it, these top 5 players average 11.248 goals per season.
That’s with Lampard amassing an average of 12.92 per season, Bruno Fernandes 12.54 per season, De Bruyne 10.64 per season and Gerrard 10.26 and Scholes 9.88 per season.
So the benchmark & outlier was, of course, Lampard and now is Bruno Fernandes, both of whom average close to 13 goals a season from midfield. And on average, rounded off, it’s 11 goals a season for these top 5 players.
But tellingly, the average goals per 90 is 0.296 for these top 5.
(Note: I don’t have the data for all midfielders from the past, & to find the number of goals that come from late runs into the box. However, it would be a more compelling argument if I had both bits of data available.)
The game is changing in the modern era. We’re seeing defenders now play the ball & keep more possession of the ball than midfielders. Possession stats reveal that defenders now see more of the ball, and attempt more passes, with build-ups & possession-based strategies employed by managers across the spectrum.
As the chart above reveals, the most attempted passes in the modern game come from defenders (in this chart tracking the Big 5 European leagues).
Looking further at the top 10 players who have attempted the most passes, as depicted above, the only midfielders on the list are Chelsea’s Moises Caicedo and Lazio’s Matteo Guendouzi. The rest of the top 10 are all defenders.
But should this translate into more goals from midfielders?
In theory, if defenders have more of the ball, it should probably translate to more time and space for midfielders, especially to make runs into the box and score — and it has.
The data & stats argue that we’re seeing more goals from midfielders in the modern game, with more players scoring over 0.30 goals per game and more 15-goal seasons for midfielders.
So, where do the goals from midfield & late runs into the box compare in the class of 2025 as compared to their predecessors?
As the chart above suggests, we’re seeing more players, particularly midfielders, rack up more non-penalty goals than ever before. Players like Wolves midfielder Matheus Cunha(15) and Napoli’s Scott McTominay (12) scored above 10 non-penalty goals from fewer than 35 matches played in the Premier League & Serie A, respectively, in the 2024/25 season.
Meanwhile, for players over the median of 36 games played last season, Chelsea’s Cole Palmer & new Man City recruit from AC Milan, Tijjani Reijnders, stand out with 11 non-penalty goals (15 with penalties) for Palmer, 10 non-penalty goals by Reijnders (15 with penalties).
Palmer & Reijnders have both scored above 15 goals in total last season in their respective leagues. You could argue that Palmer plays out wide more, but he’s more of a number 10 and likes to roam as a playmaker.
The number 10 isn’t only about G+A, as I’ve explored in an old article on this publication (linked below).
G+A & The Death Of The №10 — Is The Art Of Football Getting Lost In The Data?
Analysing the implications of football data & G+A numbers on the dying breed of no.10s in the modern gamemedium.com
But coming back, how do these current crop of players compare on a more equally measurable scale to the likes of the Lampard, Gerrard & Scholes era in terms of goals per 90?
As the chart above shows, we’re seeing a staggering number of players cross the 0.30 goals per 90 threshold as per last season. And more players go even higher than that, crossing the 0.40 goals per 90 threshold.
The likes of Jude Bellingham, new Liverpool signing from Bayer Leverkusen Florian Wirtz & West Ham’s Tomas Soucek & others cross the 0.30 goals per 90 threshold, while the median, as per this chart, is around 0.25 or 0.26 goals per 90, which is the goals per 90 average of the likes of Gerrard and Scholes, except now we’re seeing many more players cross that benchmark across Europe’s top 5 leagues.
Even comparing the top six players from the chart above across their careers so far, they’re still there or thereabouts of the 0.25 goals per 90 average & some even more.
As per the image above, Palmer averages 0.53 Gp90 while Cunha and Wirtz average 0.38 and 0.31, respectively. Jude Bellingham averages 0.27 and Soucek and McTominay average 0.23 and 0.20 Gp90, respectively as well.
Taking the average of these top five midfielders, their goals per 90 average is 0.344. You could argue that they’re still young in their careers, but they’re considerably above the old guard, whose Gp90 average is 0.296.
This trend will only improve going forward because the way the modern game is structured allows more midfielders to get into the box and score.
So why is this shift happening in the modern game?
One reason, as I’ve stated above, is the fact that defenders are seeing more of the ball and initiating play from the back, which gives midfield runners more impetus to get into the box and score.
Other tactical reasons are the concepts of wide overloads and inverted full-backs. We’re seeing much more of wide overloads creating 2v1s and 3v1s or 3v2s on the flanks and movement into spaces, while more full backs are inverting into midfield, which in turn is freeing up space, especially in Zone 14, and inside the box, this is leading to more runners into the box & midfielders having more space and time.
Another tactical shift is the lack of the out-and-out number 9, with more false 9s and midfielders shunted into the 9 slot (which I’ve also explored in an older article on my Medium publication linked below).
The Shortage Of The Classic №9 — The Lack Of Top Class Strikers In The Modern Game Is Largely…
The year is 2002, the bustling Mumbai rains have engulfed the city & a twelve year old boy heads to school not wanting…medium.com
Formations & movement are also more dynamic in-game in the modern era. Most teams dynamically adapt their formations in-game, as compared to static formations in the past, which in turn is leading to midfielders taking up more interesting and impactful positions to score goals.
Other reasons are more data-driven approaches to the modern game. Players, coaches, analysts, (even fans) are more conscious about G+A than ever before in the history of football. Data is another driving force that is making midfielders more prolific goal scorers.
In short, the answer is yes, we’re seeing more goals from midfield by midfielders as compared to the era of prolific midfield goal scorers like Lampard, Gerrard and Scholes.
More players are crossing the 0.30 goals per 90 threshold and amassing 15-goal seasons across Europe’s top 5 leagues, outputs which were less common two decades ago.
The class of Bruno Fernandes and De Bruyne was perhaps the start of this shift, which we’re now seeing play out across Europe’s big leagues rather tellingly.
This statistical shift is rather apparent in the modern game, where midfielders are becoming more out-and-out goal scorers, and it could only increase in the coming decades — a late run into the box at a time.
(Note: It would be better if I had all the data sets I needed for this article, for example this is one season vs several of the past, but there’s no proper data for the Lamps etc era & I couldn’t get a chart/plot for the last 5 or even 3 seasons, so I went with what was available, but if you look at the Gp90 averages of midfielders over the past vs the last 3 seasons or so, it tells the same story. Thanks for reading!)
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