As noted by the BBC and reported by various sources, including The72, Bristol City stand on the verge of signing Brentford striker Andre Gray in what would represent a club-record fee of £9m. Sitting bottom of the table after three Championship games, the Robins could obviously do with the firepower that Gray could provide to shoot them up the Championship table. The Ashton Gate club have personal knowledge of Gray after he scored against them for Brentford in a 4-2 victory for the London side last Saturday and Gray already has two goals for the current campaign. In agreeing a fee for the Brentford man, it is thought that Steve Cotterill’s Bristol City have fought off interest from relegated Premier League side Hull City.
However, if Bristol City are to land the Brentford star, just what is it that they’ll be gaining in Andre Gray’s signature.
Andre Gray – the numbers game
The above player radar, which represents the statistical returns from Andre Gray’s 2014/15 Brentford season is largely the reason why Bristol City have been riffling their cheque book pages to the tune of £9m. Strikers deal in the headline figure of goals and that is something that Andre Gray returns in spades. 30 goals in the Luton Town promotion campaign in the Conference, 17 in his first Championship campaign for Brentford in 2014/15 and he has already scored twice this season so far. This ‘goal promise’ is likely what has dusted off the Bristol City cheque book but what else would Gray bring to the Robins’ clause?
Gray takes a relatively high number of shots (2.6) on a typical per 90 basis with 42.30% (1.1) of these on target. From his on-target shots (44) for the 2014/15 Championship season as a whole, Andre Gray scored 17 goals; this gives him a shots on-target to goals conversion rate of 38.64%. Should Gray complete a full season (46 games) and have the same level of per 90 shots on target (1.1), with the same conversion percentage (38.64%) then he would potentially be worth around 19-20 goals a season.
What you don’t get out of Andre Gray is a ‘target man’ as he isn’t successful in the air, winning only 0.1 headed duels per typical 90 minutes of play. Whilst he also has a low number of completed passes per 90 (9.1) and at a low passing accuracy (72.60%), Andre Gray does provide 1 shot assist pass for teammates per typical 90 minutes. How this would compare is that around 11% of his passes typically end up as shooting opportunities for others, an often not-seen reflection of a strikers output. Andre Gray also prefers a short passing game with 96.80% (12.1) of his 12.5 passes per 90 being deemed as ‘short passes’ by WhoScored.
The verdict
£9m is a lot of money in anyone’s language; well, maybe not when you are looking upwards from the Championship to the Premier League. However, Bristol City are willing to spend £9m on Andre Gray and that is substantial outlay for a team just promoted as champions of League One; and with this outlay you could argue that they aren’t paying £9m and hoping to stay in the Championship for an extended amount of time. Of course the Robins will be hoping that their outlay will bring in goals, Gray looks a pretty safe bet to score well but will he get the projected 20 goals that he is capable of? Bristol City will also be getting a player who, despite a low number of completed passes, finds teammates with a high percentage of passes (11%) that turn into shooting attempts, typically one shot attempt pass per game. This level of ‘production’ is likely to be sorely needed as Bristol City look to adapt to a higher level of competition. Already the ‘figures’ from their successful League One promotion campaign are suffering in the higher league: shots on-target accuracy has dropped from 42% (2014/15) to 38.1% (2015/16) as has their goal conversion percentage from these on-target shots which has fallen from 40% (2014/15) to 25% (2015/16).
Is the purchase of Andre Gray an attempt to address this drop in production?
Main stats derived from WhoScored.com’s Andre Gray player ‘history page’
