After going more than three years without a Barclays FA Women’s Super League goal, Tottenham Hotspur forward Rachel Williams went into the Christmas break as the club’s top scorer.
The 33-year-old may be in the latter stages of her playing career but Williams has shown the predatory instincts required to help fire her side into a European qualification position in the first half of the season.
FAWSL Full-Time have been looking at Williams’ attacking statistics for the first half of the season to see how she compares to other strikers in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League.
Williams’ four league goals have been scored in 10 games, giving her a 0.43 goals per game average. She is some way behind the Barclays FA Women’s Super League’s top scorer Sam Kerr who has averaged 1.40 goals per game. The average for players in her position is just 0.34 goals per game.
While Williams is clinical in-front of goal, she doesn’t get too many shots away each game. The forward averages 2.35 shots per game but the average in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League is 2.45 shots per game. Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema has the highest shots per game average of 5.49.
In terms of shots on target, Williams is above the league’s average of 0.97 with 1.07 shots on target per game. Manchester City’s Bunny Shaw tops this category with 2.36 shots on target per game. Williams has registered 45.5% of her shots on target whereas the league’s average is 40%. Reading’s Natasha Dowie and Everton’s Valérie Gauvin are the most accurate shooters with 62.5% of their efforts troubling the opposition goal. Dowie also comes out on top with goals per shot (0.38). Williams has a 0.18 goals per shot average while the average for the league is 0.14 goals per shot.
It is fair to say that Williams is a ‘fox in the box’ for Spurs with the forward getting her share of scrappy, close range goals. Her average shot distance of 8.80 yards is the closest to goal of any forward in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League. The league’s average shooting distance is almost double at 15.79 yards while Natasha Flint has the longest distance shooting average of 25.90 yards.
Williams returns to action with Spurs on Friday when they travel to Chelsea in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League.