By Opta Analyst | Created at 2025-01-15 15:36:51 | Updated at 2025-01-15 18:35:58
2 hours ago
Yoane Wissa has overtaken Ivan Toney as the leading scorer in Brentford’s Premier League history. Does he deserve a bit more credit than actually he gets?
Yoane Wissa’s goal against Manchester City on Tuesday night took him clear as the leading scorer in Brentford’s Premier League history.
The DR Congo forward now has 37 Premier League goals for the club, moving one clear of Ivan Toney who departed in the summer having scored 36 times for the west London club.
Although Toney ended up moving to the Saudi Pro League, at his peak he was linked with many of the world’s best teams, including Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham. It’s fair to say he was thought of as one of the Premier League’s leading strikers after he scored 20 goals in the 2022-23 season. In a market lacking in world-class centre-forwards, Toney was genuinely one of the most sought-after and valuable players in the game.
After Wissa’s strike against City, he now has 11 goals after 21 Brentford games in 2024-25, meaning he is on course to match Toney’s 20-goal haul assuming he continues at his current rate for the rest of the season.
They are very different players, and Toney was useful for Brentford for far more than just his goals. He was a fantastic outlet as a target man when Thomas Frank wanted his team to go long – something he has never been afraid of doing – and an adept pressing forward. He is technical, powerful and at his best he could score all sorts of goals.
But the numbers suggest he was actually a far less efficient goalscorer for Brentford than Wissa, and yet Wissa is almost never spoken about as being of the same calibre as Toney. Wissa is never linked with a big-money move away from the G-Tech Community Stadium to a bigger club, when his raw numbers now surpass those of Toney.
Wissa’s 37 Brentford goals have come from almost nine hours less game time than Toney, 60 fewer shots, and a much lower expected goals total. Wissa has also never taken a penalty for the club, while 11 of Toney’s 36 goals came from the spot.
Wissa has outscored his xG (29.2) by more than seven, while Toney’s 36 goals came from almost exactly that number of expected goals (36.1). Take penalties out of the equation, though, and Toney scored 25 goals from 26.7 xG.
There’s a decent argument that Wissa is the better goalscorer, and is better and getting good chances more consistently. One could also argue that he deserves a little more respect for his achievements in London.
A counter-argument is that Toney was playing for Brentford when they were new to the Premier League, and faced a tougher task helping the team settle than Wissa now does playing for an established top-flight side. In his most prolific season, for example, Toney scored 34.5% of Brentford’s Premier League goals (20/58), while Wissa has scored 27.5% (11/40) of their goals this term. Wissa is playing in a team that creates more chances and scores more goals than the team Toney played in.
But Wissa is part of the reason for that. His role in the team is a significant one, and he makes a huge difference to Brentford’s overall attacking output.
Whether he is or isn’t a better player than Toney, he is proving this season that he should be considered among the best forwards playing in the top flight right now.
Only Erling Haaland (15), Alexander Isak (13) and Mohamed Salah (13) have scored more non-penalty goals in the Premier League this season than Wissa, while only Isak has scored more of players who don’t take penalties for their team. He also ranks fifth of all players in the Premier League this season for non-penalty xG (9.9).
But he has also played a fair bit less than most of his rivals in these metrics, having missed a few games earlier in the season with an ankle injury. Adjusting the numbers based on minutes played moves Wissa even higher up the charts.
Of players with at least 1,000 minutes played this season, Wissa ranks third for non-penalty goals per 90 (0.71), behind only Isak (0.8) and Haaland (0.72), and fourth for non-penalty xG per 90 (0.64).
He also doesn’t have as many shots as many of the other best strikers in the league, in part because he plays for Brentford. Wissa has had 42 shots this season, putting him 19th in the Premier League for total shots. His tally is less than half Haaland’s total (85).
But he maintains his impressive goal return by getting into good goalscoring positions consistently. Each of his shots in Premier League games this season have been worth an average of 0.24 xG, which is higher than any other player to have had more than 15 non-penalty shots.
Wissa might not provide the physical presence of someone like a Haaland or Toney, but he has fantastic movement; he is a master of finding space in the penalty area, and he is also incredibly composed in front of goal. His finish against City on Tuesday was a case in point, as he took his time on the edge of the six-yard box to dummy a shot, send Stefan Ortega flying and shoot high into an empty night.
At the age of 28, part of the reason there is no sign of another club coming in for him is that he could soon be past his peak.
But as one of the top goalscorers in the Premier League this season, there are surely a few bigger clubs than Brentford who he could improve.
Maybe it’s only a matter of time until that changes and someone makes a move for him, but for now, Brentford are reaping the benefits of having Wissa leading their line.
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