As supporters we want our club to have players that maximize use of chances, in effect, score goals. Goals are delicious not in the same way that aged cheese is delicious but in the way in that they lead to wins and make us happy.

I wrote that Rooney is not an efficient shooter and that this is not where his value lies. This obviously raises two questions:

1) What makes an efficient shooter?

2) Prove to me that Rooney is an inefficient shooter?

Oh my, that is a challenge, but one for which I have answers.

To respond to the first question, an efficient shooter is a player who scores on a high percentage of attempts. If your club has a player that does this then he is an efficient shooter. If your club has a player who scores on a low percentage of attempts then he is an inefficient shooter.

As a side note, I am not saying that an inefficient shooter is a terrible scorer. Scoring depends on both a player's ability to get in position to attempt a shot and the percentage of those attempts he finishes, but low efficiency often results from a player frequently shooting when it would be better not to shoot. The players who are good at getting in a top shooting position (think Ruud van Nistelrooy) usually take high efficiency shots and so are efficiency scorers, while players who take low efficiency shots usually shoot when not in an optimum position to score.

Now back to the main topic. What many fans will call Wayne Rooney's best season - 2009/10 - consisted of Rooney scoring on 12.36% of attempts on goal from 178 total shots, resulting in 22 goals (penalties excluded). This may sound impressive, but, when we look at the percentage of actual goals per attempt, it really isn't.

In fact, one could easily say that Rooney is a more efficient team player if he takes fewer shots. Last season, he took many more shots than usual and had 22 goals (penalties excluded), but he had much fewer assists than in other seasons (3 assists in 2009/10 compared with 41 in his previous 4 seasons, so his assists dropped by 67% from his average). He shot instead of passing. We can see from this that for a player such as Rooney who is not a high efficiency scorer, he may increase his team's production by taking fewer shots and passing more frequently.

Well the point of this post is to show that Rooney is indeed a comparatively inefficient shooter under the scrutiny of a per-shot analysis. You want evidence? Well, here you go, a ranking by shooting efficiency of twenty random forwards in the Premier League.

1. Javier Hernandez (2010 - 2011)

2. Fernando Torres (2007 - 2011)

Total Shots: 348

Goals (non-penalty): 65

Goals per shot percentage: 18.7%

3. Robbie Keane (2002 - 2011)

4. Gabriel Agbonlahor (2005 - 2011)

Total Shots: 271
Goals (non-penalty): 47
Goals per shot percentage: 17.3%

5. Darren Bent (2005 - 2011)
Total Shots: 403
Goals (non-penalty): 68
Goals per shot percentage: 16.9%

11. Didier Drogba (2004 - 2011)

12. Carlos Tevez (2006 - 2011)

13. Kevin Phillips (2002 - 2010)

14. Kevin Davies (2003 - 2011)

Total Shots: 430
Goals (non-penalty): 58
Goals per shot percentage: 13.5%

15. Nicolas Anelka (2002 - 2011)

Total Shots: 663
Goals (non-penalty): 88
Goals per shot percentage: 13.1%

17. Jermain Defoe (2004 - 2011)

20. Johan Elmander (2008 - 2011)

Total Shots: 173
Goals (non-penalty): 17
Goals per shot percentage: 9.8%

My point about shooting efficiency is clear. Rooney ranks 19 of 20 random Premier League forwards in shooting efficiency.

What do we learn? The King of efficient shooting is Javier Hernandez, King Javier. He is more likely to score when presented with an opportunity than any other top Premier League striker. Second, to nobody's surprise, is the lethal Fernando Torres, followed by Robbie Keane.

As I said, Rooney is not the most efficient scorer when examined in a per-shot analysis. His efficiency - and I should add that I'd rather have Rooney on my team than anybody else on the above list - lies in his treble ability to score AND contribute to the midfield AND assist, which we can examine in more detail in another post. If he did not do the latter two and saw himself solely as a shooter he would probably not be in the Premier League.