- 2 days ago
Welcome to the era of the widemen. Strikers are out, wingers are IN and we are here to explain exactly WHY they are the new rockstars of football.
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00:00The days of the classic number nine striker being football's most prized asset are fading fast.
00:05Now it's the wingers, explosive, unpredictable, game-changing, who are commanding the biggest
00:10price tags. But why? What's driving this shift in value? Today we're breaking down how modern
00:16football has moved beyond the traditional striker, why tactical changes have turned
00:19wingers into the real superstars, and what this says about the future of the game.
00:24Now, before we get onto the tactics of modern day football, I thought I'd take a quick look back
00:31at the numbers to give you an idea of one particular stat that has been changing over time,
00:36well, the last 20 years or so, and that is goal contributors. It may seem like an obvious statement
00:41to make, but putting the ball in the back of the net is the hardest thing to do in football,
00:45and therefore the ones who can do it, and do it regularly, are more often than not going to be
00:49the match winners, the difference makers, and as a byproduct of that, the most valuable in the team.
00:56Back in 2005, things were pretty straightforward. Strikers were the main goal scorers, averaging
01:01over 20 goals per season. Wingers, on the other hand, usually scored less than half of that,
01:06between 8 and 10. When it comes to assists, wingers were the main creators, and as such averaged
01:11about 5 or 6 assists per season, while strikers barely contributed, with around 2 on average.
01:16In terms of overall involvement then, strikers had the upper hand, participating in roughly 0.7 goals
01:22per 90 minutes, whilst wingers were involved in about half as many, around 0.4. Fast forward
01:28though to 2015, and the gap began to close. Strikers still averaged around 18 goals per season,
01:36but wingers were now hitting 12 to 14 goals regularly. Assists for wingers increased too,
01:40up to around 8 per season, whilst strikers improved slightly to 4. The overall goal involvement numbers
01:46for wingers was now at 0.65 per 90 minutes, getting closer to the strikers' 0.7. This reflected
01:54a tactical evolution. Wingers started playing narrower, cutting inside to shoot or combine
01:59with midfielders, whilst the rise of false nines and fluid frontlines blurred the traditional
02:04striking role.
02:05So, to today in the 24-25 season, the story is very different. Strikers still score a strong
02:1118 goals on average, but wingers aren't far behind with 16. The assist gap is even wider,
02:17as wingers are racking up around 10, double that of strikers at 5. When we combine goals
02:22and assists, wingers now edge out strikers, with about 0.72 goal involvements compared to
02:270.68 for forwards. In the modern day, we have expected goals and assists too, the data of which
02:32also confirms that wingers have a solid expected goals figure of around 0.45 and expected assists
02:38of 0.30, showing their dual threat in scoring and creating. Strikers still have a higher expected
02:45goals number with about 0.55, but just 0.154 assists. In a nutshell, the wingers have become
02:51hybrid attackers, now both part creator and part finisher.
02:55But the data does not stop there. Just as a quick snapshot for this season, here's the
02:59top five players in Europe's top leagues when it comes to goals and assists per 90 minutes.
03:03At the very top, Mo Salah, no surprise, with a ridiculous 1.41. That means he's involved
03:09in more than one goal every full game he plays. Right behind him is Harry Kane, a classic striker,
03:14showing he's still a top scorer with 1.29 combined, but the rest of the top five, they're all wingers.
03:20Michael Alisse from Bayern's at 1.25, whilst Rafinha and Vinicius Jr. both have 1.13. It's no wonder
03:27that the 2025 Ballon d'Or contenders include several wingers instead of pure strikers. Salah,
03:32Dembele, Rafinha and Yamal all have a worthy shout of winning it.
03:36So with this change in goal scoring and goal creating reliance from strikers to wingers,
03:40I thought to myself, I wonder if the transfer market reflects this? And what do you know,
03:45it does. If you look at the transfer spending over the last 20 years, in the top European leagues,
03:50the percentage of money spent on pure strikers has slowly declined, whilst the spending on
03:55wingers has risen sharply. Around 2005, 28% of the transfer spend went to strikers, with 15% on
04:02wingers. By 2025, spending on pure strikers has dropped to 24%, whilst the wingers now take about
04:0835% of that total spend. Think of the crazy amounts over the years spent on Bale, Dembele,
04:14Neymar, Krautschelia, Grealish, Hazard, even Florian Wirtz, who will probably end up as some sort of
04:19inside forward winger hybrid at Liverpool, certainly not as a classic striker. There's been big numbers on
04:25strikers too, but nowhere near as much as there has been in the past. So are these spending habits
04:31indicative of just goal scoring and goal contributions? Well, to be honest, yes. But why are they scoring
04:38more? Well, here comes the tactical part, where I'll do my best to break this down with some
04:42relatable examples. So to start off, traditionally, strikers were the focal point of attack, as proven
04:48in the numbers from earlier. The aim of the game was to get them in the best position to score because
04:52they were the ones who could do it. You'd often find them in formations like 4-4-2 with
04:57two strikers sharing goal scoring duties and often forming lethal partnerships.
05:01Think Andy Cole and Dwight York combining for that goal in their new camp in the late 90s.
05:05Genius. But football tactics have changed dramatically over the past two decades.
05:10The dominant formation now is the 4-3-3 or a similar variation like a 4-2-3-1. Basically,
05:16a single striker supported by a midfield three and two wide men. This lone striker faces two
05:22centre-backs for the majority of occasions and is often isolated, outnumbered and relying on
05:26teammates to create chances. Their role has shifted from being the sole orchestrator of attacks
05:32to mainly finishing moves built elsewhere. Meanwhile, wingers have moved from hugging
05:36the touchline to playing narrower and higher up the pitch, mainly due to higher fullbacks or the
05:41midfield three being able to spread themselves horizontally enough to cover any gaps left by a
05:46far too attacking winger. They now operate in half spaces closer to goal, combining scoring with
05:52chance creation. But who do we credit with this shift in momentum? Well, I'd say there's a few
05:57major tactical turning points in the development over the winger as the star player. But before we
06:02get onto those, I obviously have to acknowledge the rise of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
06:08Basically, Messi and Ronaldo laid a whole new blueprint for a winger. Heck, a whole new player in general.
06:13Ones that could do absolutely everything to the point where getting the best out of them
06:18and getting the ball to them wherever they were on the pitch was genuinely a pretty good idea.
06:22However, when we look at wingers as a whole, both then and now, those two are complete anomalies in
06:27the data because no striker is doing what they do, never mind any other winger. Ridiculous numbers.
06:33So in this case, I'm looking at one particular thing they were early pioneers of and that is playing
06:37on the opposite side to their supposed stronger foot. Of course, they weren't the first to do this,
06:41but before them, very few players actually did. Both Robert Perez and Ronaldinho come to mind,
06:46but traditionally, wide players stuck to their stronger sides. Think Beckham and Giggs playing
06:50on the right and left respectively. Now, you'd be hard pressed to find a team that doesn't have at
06:54least one inverted winger, if not two. This shift in tactics has allowed wingers to cut inside onto
07:00their stronger foot instead of their weaker one and opened up a whole new host of potential threats to
07:04the opposition goal. They could interchange passes from nearby midfielders, find new angles to shoot from,
07:10create space for an overlapping fullback, swing crosses inwards instead of outwards and so many
07:15other options. From here, we've really seen the likes of Iron Robin and Frank Ribery explode onto a
07:20whole new level. This rise in goal contributions from wingers then led to a new era of striker.
07:26One who still scored plenty, but if they could also do the hard work off the ball to open up space for
07:30the wingers, it was still just as effective because the wingers could also be relied upon to score.
07:35Think of Benzema and Suarez filling those roles. Both unbelievable forwards in their own right,
07:40but far from being just goal scorers, they were unselfish workers and certainly were overshadowed
07:44in the recognition and awards department in comparison to their more illustrious attacking
07:48partners. In fact, both were the cheapest or least valuable in terms of market worth on paper
07:54in their respective front three, a sign of things to come in the transfer market.
07:58But that's no disrespect, it's just the harsh truth of playing alongside arguably two of the
08:03greatest players football has ever seen. Following on from this though, came Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool,
08:09as the front three perfectly illustrated complementary roles where the centre forward
08:13wasn't even on the same level as the goal scoring wingers. No disrespect again, Firmino was just as
08:18important to Klopp's great team as the others, but the truth is that his role as a deep line forward
08:23freed up Salah and Mane to move into space beyond the back line and attack the goal from a more direct
08:28angle than out wide, with regular runs from out to in. Firmino's lack of goal scoring numbers wasn't
08:33even held against him because his play was seen as necessary to allow Salah especially to score so
08:38many goals. Which then brings us to the last few years, where the importance of a striker and their
08:43various abilities are still there, whether as a goal scorer or creator, but the burden of scoring and
08:48assisting has now been spread across the front three as a whole. From a purely numbers point of view,
08:53this makes total sense, just for the fact there are normally two wingers in each side, which,
08:56combined with a central striker, gives three attackers close to and directly attacking the box
09:01instead of just two in a 4-4-2 formation for example. The best teams today prove this,
09:06with Liverpool, Barcelona, PSG all having goal threats from all angles. Whereas if you look at
09:10City or Arsenal for example, an injury or drop in form to Haaland or Saka respectively leaves them
09:15painfully exposed on the goal scoring front. I mean, when Haaland doesn't score he gets called a
09:19Ligue 2 player because he doesn't seem to do much else. Something that would be a little bit more
09:24unnoticed if City actually had wingers to provide goals instead. For example, in the 2021 season,
09:30they had no prolific forward, but they shared the goals around the whole team,
09:34with midfielder Ilkay Gundogan being top scorer in the Premier League with 13. Arsenal have also been
09:39crying out for a centre forward for a few years now, and whilst it helps to have one, they still need
09:43more contributions from the rest of the team apart from just Saka. I can only see it being the sort of
09:49forward slash wingers for two reasons. Firstly, because there is a huge demand for them. Not only
09:54for one, but for two in each side, as I discussed. The emphasis on modern tactics is placed on them.
10:00This basically follows the exact same principle of 20 or so years ago, when you'd often find two
10:05strikers on whom the emphasis was placed. So it's the same idea, but the proverbial goalposts have been
10:10moved. And secondly, because whilst a last minute save from your goalkeeper could win you the cup,
10:15or a solid defensive partnership sets the tone for a well-coordinated backline,
10:20in a footballing world that's run more like business, with bigger and bigger transfer fees,
10:24players are going to need to have clear valuable numbers to justify their worth and,
10:29god I hate myself for saying this, showing themselves as a good return on investment.
10:34Oh god. And what's more valuable than scoring or providing match-winning goals on a regular basis?
10:39So with all that said and done, what do you see as the next tactical development in football,
10:43and which players will be the most valuable in the years to come? Let me know in the comments,
10:47don't forget to subscribe with that notification bell on, and until the next one, I'll see you later.
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