Isobel Goodwin's spectacular debut season

A closer look at the Blades' top-scorer's first full season of senior football, plus a preview of Birmingham City (A) this weekend

The last international break of the season is in the books, and we’re entering the final two weeks of the Women’s Championship season. Firstly a shoutout to Tara Bourne who played 90 minutes for England U23s as they beat Sweden, and I’ll get to a little preview of United’s game with Birmingham towards the end of this newsletter. But mainly, I want to talk about Isobel Goodwin.

If you’ve not been following closely, United’s Izzy Goodwin is the current second-leading scorer in the Women’s Championship (Palace’s Elise Hughes nudged into the lead last weekend, although she has now played a game more than United’s number 10). After scoring eight times in her last seven league appearances, Goodwin has 15 goals in 19 games this season – a fantastic return for someone who is playing her first full campaign of senior football.

I should say here that Goodwin picked up a painful-looking ankle injury in the win over London City Lionesses, and has been seen on social media wearing a protective boot in the weeks since that game. With the season wrapping up a week on Sunday, and United with nothing but pride to play for in the final two games, it’s very possible that she’s made her final appearance of 2023/24. 

(I almost don’t want to write this, but let’s hope it’s not her final appearance in red and white).

If this is the end of her season, though, then this feels like as good a time as any to write about how superb she’s been. United have scored 31 goals in their 20 games to date; Goodwin has scored almost half of them (48%).

What’s perhaps most encouraging – even if this is going to sound like a slight criticism – is that I almost feel like she could have scored even more. She leads all players in the Championship in shots per game (3.1), and in turn has the most shots on target per game (1.8) by a decent margin. 

I noted at the halfway point of the season that she also hits the target at a phenomenal rate, which has stayed consistent even as we enter the final weeks of the season – BBC Sport have Goodwin hitting the target with 71% of her shots, just behind Palace’s Hughes and Annabel Blanchard, but from a far greater number of efforts. 

Try this on for some counterintuitive thinking: you could make the argument that Goodwin would score even more goals if that SoT percentage came down a bit (hear me out). 7 out of 10 shots on target is insanely high considering - having watched every one of her games this season - she isn’t someone to only shoot when she’s about two yards out.

Hitting the target repeatedly is obviously a great asset for a striker - that’s why I’m bringing it up here - but perhaps the next step for Goodwin is to work on finding the corners rather than the keeper. That would naturally mean she misses the target more often, going for an unsaveable finish rather than a “safe” one - but it could also be what pushes her up to the next level as a striker.

Goodwin’s actual goal conversion of 31% (the percentage of her shots that have ended up in the back of the net) is slightly behind some of her peers, including Southampton’s Sophia Pharoah (8 goals) and the Sunderland pair of Emily Scarr (7) and Mary McAteer (6).

And that’s a good thing if you’re invested in how Goodwin could look next season, or the one after, or the ten after that (reminder: she’s 21 years old). I look at Elise Hughes’ goal conversion of 47% and see a player who might be enjoying a season that is red hot, yes, but is also potentially unsustainable. 

For context, the average goal conversion rate of all players in the WSL is a shade over 12% (data from FBRef.com – unfortunately they don’t have Women’s Championship data). Even filtering that specifically to players who FBRef lists as a forward pops a conversion rate of 13.5%. 

The cream of the WSL’s attacking talent (Khadija Shaw, Elisabeth Terland, Lauren James, Nikita Parris etc) sits in that 20-25% range with only Bristol City’s Amalie Thestrup cracking 30% from a meaningful amount of shots (Katie Robinson is at 33% but from only nine shots, while Everton defender Megan Finnigan leads the way at 43% but with three goals from a mere seven shots).

Naturally those strikers are playing against better defenders and goalkeepers than Goodwin and the other forwards in the Championship. But then they also benefit from having elite teammates laying on those chances, as well as comparatively top-class facilities and coaching that the league below doesn’t benefit from. 

Maybe one of these outweighs the other (eg maybe Goodwin doesn’t score 31% of her shots if she’s shooting against Mary Earps or Khiara Keating, but maybe she also gets better shots if she had Ella Toone or Lauren James setting her up) – I’m happy to call it a wash and say that her conversion rate is both really damn good and also not so high that it can be easily dismissed as a one-season fluke.

Penalties have helped, certainly (four out of four, joint-most scored in the league). But my guess is that when any analysts or scouts from WSL sides happen to look at the stats for the top-scorers in the leagues below, Goodwin’s would catch the eye as something that could potentially carry forward into future seasons.

All that for a team who have, until the last handful of games, been little more than a lower-midtable side for the bulk of the campaign. It’s not like Goodwin is having chance after chance laid on a plate for her as part of a dominant team – a lot of her strength is in creating shots for herself with her speed and movement.

If she has indeed kicked her last ball of this campaign, it’s been a brilliant first season for United – and one that should set her up for an exciting career ahead.

Birmingham City (A), Sunday 21st April, 14:00 kick-off

And so to the Blades’ penultimate game of the season, as United travel to Birmingham on Sunday. City lost to Palace last week which ended the Blues’ hopes of promotion, so United may catch them in a slightly demotivated mood which might boost the away side’s chances of avenging the 4-0 hammering dished out at Bramall Lane in October.

City are 5th in the table – United could still theoretically finish ahead of them – but have been statistically one of the strongest teams in the league all season. They have created by far the highest expected goals per game (2.12; next highest is Southampton with 1.81) and have also allowed the fewest expected goals against per game. 

I haven’t followed their season anywhere near as closely as United, but from the outside looking in – and certainly on the evidence of that aforementioned Bramall Lane dismantling – they really should be entering the final few games on the brink of promotion. Instead they’ve only won two of their last seven league games. Football eh.

Birmingham will be without former England international Jade Moore after the midfielder was sent off last week. United’s former Player of the Year, Jade Pennock, made her first appearance in 4 months against Palace so might come into the team for Moore.

For United, if Goodwin is indeed out of the picture then it might put youngster Eva Butler in line for her first senior start. Butler, who has been racking up the goals for the U21s this season and bagged a hat-trick against Manchester United on Sunday, was Goodwin’s half-time replacement in the last game.