Preston North End are sitting in 13th position in the EFL Championship. One of Preston’s best performers this season has been Danish man Emil Riis Jakobsen. He has already hit his career-best goal tally in a season, and there are still two more months left in the season.
The above chart ranks Emil Riis Jakobsen’s performances in attack relative to the rest of the league. Emil Riis Jakobsen has scored 13 goals so far this season at a rate of 0.41 goals per game. This scoring rate puts him in the upper quintile of the entire division. He has been outperforming his xG output of 0.33 goals per game. He takes only two shots per game, but 40% of the shots end up being on target. He attempts 3.5 dribbles per game and has a success rate of 68%.
Seen in the above visual is the shot map of Emil Riis Jakobsen. All but two of Emil Riis Jakobsen’s goals this season for Preston have come from inside the box, including three from inside the six-yard box. He has missed a few big chances which had an xG of 0.35 or more this season. Jakobsen has taken 62 shots until this point in the season which means he is taking nearly five shots for every goal he is scoring. Only one of his 13 goals has come from the penalty spot.
Given above is the pass sonar, xT timeline and xT map of Emil Riis Jakobsen. The Danish striker has consistently produced an xT value of over 0.5 throughout the 90 minutes of the games this season. He has also managed to hit 1.0 in xT value, particularly in the first 15 and the last 15 minutes of the game. The xT map shows that Emil Riis Jakobsen has been creating threats successfully from both the right wing and the left wing in the final third. No wonder his sideways passes into the penalty box have generated more xT than his forward passes. In addition to his 13 goals, he has registered three assists to his name so far this season.
Emil Riis Jakobsen has been by far the best performer for Preston North End this season. If he had more support, Preston would have been higher up on the league table. The next best scorer for the team, Daniel Johnson, has only five goals to his name. If Preston are to finish strong, then Jakobsen needs support from other teammates.
