Comparing the stats behind Sergio Aguero vs Diego Costa

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The Manchester City and Chelsea forwards are widely considered to be the two best out-and-out strikers in the Premier League.

Sergio Aguero and Diego Costa together at Atletico Madrid

Now that Zlatan Ibrahimovic has entered something of a goal scoring drought, there seems to be a degree of unanimity within the footballing community that Sergio Aguero and Diego Costa are best forwards in the Premier League. Despite the comparisons, few would put Costa in the same bracket as Aguero, who Alan Shearer described as the only ‘world class’ player in the Premier League at the weekend.

Therefore, there was an air of surprise when the statistic that Diego Costa had reached the tally of 40 goals for Chelsea in 7 games fewer than Sergio Aguero reached the same milestone at Manchester City was revealed. As a result, the debate seems to have been reopened somewhat, with a number of Chelsea fans using it as evidence that their man is just as capable as City’s top marksman.

In the light of such discussion, we have taken the opportunity to look at the stats behind both men; assessing crucial statistics, such as goals scored, goals per minute, chances missed, penalties scored and more, to see what, if anything, the stats prove.

The image above displays both Aguero and Costa’s statistics in the Premier League and the Champions League since Costa joined Chelsea in 2014. They make for intriguing reading, and speaking volumes about the quality of Costa.

Firstly, we have the goals scored stat, which Aguero unsurprisingly emerges best from, having scored 26 more goals than Costa. It is a much closer affair when it comes to assists, with Costa just edging out the Argentina, with 2 more assists to his name than the Manchester City ace.

Interestingly, Costa has also missed far fewer major chances. A difference of 19 between the two players suggests that Aguero is a lot more wasteful in front of goal than some might think. Penalties is a statistic which has to be included, as it is one which causes fierce debate. Aguero is Man City’s regular penalty taker, whilst Costa is not at Stamford Bridge.

That is reflected in the statistics, with Aguero having scored 16 times from 12 yards out, compared to Costa having scored just once. Then we come to a crucial statistic, games played and minutes played, both of which are weighted in favour of Aguero. So here are the same statistics but in terms of per minute:

From that we can see that Aguero is still the more prolific of the duo, although they both have exceptional goals/min ratios, Costa assists significantly more regularly per minute, misses chances a lot less often and takes penalties the equivalent of once for every 4 days of football he plays, whilst Aguero takes 1 for less than every 5 games on average.

If one removes 15 of Aguero’s penalty goals from the statistics, so that the players had both scored an equal amount of goals from the spot, Aguero’s goals/min ratio rises to a goal every 132 minutes, just over 20 minutes quicker per goal, on average, than Costa.

That is likely to come as a surprise to many people, given that the majority consider Aguero to be far more clinical in front of goal. What is arguably even more impressive is that Costa has managed to accumulate these stats despite a very poor campaign at Chelsea last season, scoring only 12 Premier League goals.

Costa struggled at Chelsea last season

Despite the statistics, few would consider Costa to be a superior player to Aguero, and rightly so. But Chelsea fans can make a legitimate claim that they wouldn’t swap their man for the Manchester City star. Costa is seemingly perfectly suited to the way in which the Blues are currently playing under Antonio Conte, and both Conte and Guardiola probably have strikers better suited to their systems.

In terms of the players who could challenge Aguero and Costa for the title of the Premier League’s best forward, they are few and far between, but Harry Kane, Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez (if we call him a forward now) are the most obvious candidates in terms of players with enough Premier League data to compare them with Costa and Aguero.

In the interest of fairness, we have also included their stats alongside Costa and Aguero’s below. Once again, even with an increased sample size, Aguero has both scored and missed the most big chances. Harry Kane’s goals/min ratio is in fact more impressive than Diego Costa’s, although the Tottenham striker has scored 6 more penalties than the Spanish international.

Who do you think will win the Premier League Golden Boot for 2016/17?