Ranking the 5 most lethal finishers in world football since 2014/15 using data analytics

#2 Antoine Griezmann - Net onpxG Per 90 – 0.148

Atletico Madrid v AS Roma - UEFA Champions League

There have been times when this player was single-handedly responsible for carrying his team across the line. Now part of a much larger, well-oiled machine Antoine Griezmann hasn’t exactly hit the ground running. Since signing for Barcelona, he’s had many people sit on his back, but he’s been through a similar phase before and he came out of it unscathed. StatDNA, a company that Arsenal had purchased outright to help with player purchases and data acquisition, had thought that Griezmann's ’metrics were not overly impressive’ when Arsene Wenger mentioned his name as a potential signing.

Now, of course, Arsenal Football Club probably regret it, just as they do with other players who have gone on to leave their massive footprints all over the globe. Griezmann on his part has managed to drown out all the noise and has seemingly turned a corner when it comes to his Barcelona career. Slowly, but steadily, he has started winning over the Barcelona fans, who are historically, a tough sell. He has scored 3 goals in his last 4 La Liga appearances.

A return of 7 goals and 4 assists from his 16 starts with Barcelona is by no means an unhealthy return but is looked down upon solely due to the lofty returns that viewers have come to expect from him. Having played his last 5 full seasons in a team like Atletico Madrid has probably made him the clinical finisher he is. Regularly put in a sink or swim scenario, if Atletico strikers don’t finish the few opportunities they get in front of goal, they’ll probably end up drawing all their games due to their team’s defensive build.

Along with his deadly finishing, his congenital mindset to run into the ground, bred into his system by the fitness coach who makes players run until they vomit, could serve Griezmann well as fans like nothing more than a player's commitment to the team’s greater good.

Not the first name that comes to mind when we think of a clinical finisher, Griezmann has comprehensively eclipsed his npxG. As far as pure stats, Griezmann has played 15765 minutes and scored 95 np goals from an npxG of 69 goals, an astonishing difference of 26 goals. This gives him a Net onpxG Per 90 of 0.148, which means that on an average, for every 90 minutes he plays, Griezmann is outdoing his ‘Expected Goals’ stats by 0.148, the 2nd highest amongst all players within the aforementioned constraints.