Luka Jovic, Paco Alcacer, Reiss Nelson and Alfred Finnbogason: The clinical band of brothers

Luka Jovic, Paco Alcacer, Reiss Nelson and Alfred Finnbogason have 30 goals between them already this season, and share one other eyewatering stat: so far in the 2018/19 Bundesliga campaign, they have taken — on average — less than 90 minutes to find the back of the net.

With the season of super-subs keeping the goalscoring charts in flux, there are no fewer than nine players in Germany’s top flight boasting a goals to games ratio of less than 90 minutes. While the likes of Hendrik Weydandt and Karim Bellarabi deserve due credit, the aforementioned quartet are not just scoring at a feverish rate, but with unprecedented regularity.

bundesliga.com opens up on the men who have some of the best-trained noses for goal in the game.

Alfred Finnbogason (Augsburg)

Stats:

• 7 goals/486 minutes
• 1 goal/69 minutes
• 22 shots
• 1 goal/3 shots
• % of team goals: 7/19 (37%)
• 6 apps (6 starts)
• 0 assists
• 2/2 penalties

“Fortunately, my body is again doing what my head wants,” said the Iceland international, whose physique has been problematic in 2018, but has not diminished his ability to hit the back of the net. Given his origins, you could say it’s hardly surprising the Iceland international has the cool head required to be prolific in front of goal…

After a knee tendon injury upset his start the season, a hat-trick in his maiden 2018/19 outing against Freiburg on Matchday 6 signalled an instant return to form, and he has only failed to find the net in one of his league appearances so far, including in each of his last three as he has reprised his bountiful partnership with Michael Gregoritsch.

“We don’t need to talk too much,” explained Finnbogason, whose understanding with the Austria international has blossomed to their club’s benefit. “It worked well from the first day.”

He got 12 league goals last term, and at his current ratio, he’s on course to soundly beat that mark, and then some. But there is that thorny issue of his body and its tendency to betray him.

An adductor problem picked up in the November international break forced him back to Germany early, and makes him a doubt for Saturday’s game with Frankfurt. With over a third of their goals coming from their headline striker, Augsburg need Finnbogason’s head to be more persuasive…

Reiss Nelson (Hoffenheim)

Stats:

• 6 goals/325 minutes
• 1 goal/54 minutes
• 11 shots
• 1 goal/1.8 shots
• % of team goals: 6/24 (25%)
• 7 apps (4 starts)
• 0 assists
• 0 penalties

It’s only early days, but there is little doubt the Sinsheim club and the English teenager struck themselves a win-win deal last summer.

The loan signing from Arsenal is getting what he wants — time on the pitch — while Hoffenheim are maybe getting even more than they had bargained for. “This boy has so much talent it’s incredible,” gushed an impressed Olivier Baumann after seeing Nelson’s staggering strike at Leverkusen on Matchday 10. “He already helps us so much at 18 years old.”

The assistance has come in spectacular spadeloads from Jadon Sancho’s BFF, who has found the net — on average — once every 54 minutes on the pitch in Germany so far. And as a goalkeeper, Bauman can only have been still more appreciative of a player who puts the ball beyond the opposition number one with every other shot.

Watch: Reiss Nelson named October Rookie of the Month

After his brace against Stuttgart on Matchday 8, Nelson vowed, “that’s just the start, the best is yet to come,” and while he has proven as good as his word, helping Hoffenheim to a four-game winning streak in as many games before the November international break, they have helped him — and themselves — by playing him.

“They believe in young players and that’s the main thing,” explained the 18-year-old Londoner, whose goal glut has come from just four starts in seven top-flight appearances. “Getting the belief behind you to play football.”

Paco Alcacer (Borussia Dortmund)

Stats:

• 8 goals/235 minutes
• 1 goal/29 minutes
• 15 shots
• 1 goal/1.8 shots
• % of team’s goals 8/33 (24%)
• 6 apps (2 starts)
• 0 assists
• 0 penalties

Out. Of. Sight. That is where the Dortmund forward smashed the 55-year-old record of Charly Dörfel. Who? The former Hamburg striker raced to the first eight Bundesliga goals of his career in the first 519 minutes of the top-flight’s inaugural 1963/64 season. But if that was ‘raced’, then Alcacer is travelling at what Star Trek fans will recognise as ‘warp speed’.

The Spain international needed a full 301 minutes fewer — over three full games’ worth — to beat Dörfel’s mark, reaching the target when he brilliantly chipped home the winner against Bayern Munich.

Watch: Borussia Dortmund’s Paco Alcacer dedicates Bayern Munich win to fans

“It’s a release to play, get minutes and enjoy one’s job,” explained the on-loan Barcelona man, whose limited opportunities at the Camp Nou have played nicely into Dortmund’s plans as they reap the huge benefits of Alcacer’s productive days at the office.

The sang froid he showed in delicately lifting the ball over Manuel Neuer to decide the Klassiker is also displayed starkly with his goals/shots ratio of 1.8 — gulp! — and he needs just over ten touches of the ball for every single strike. He’s made only two starts so far, so you have to wonder what will happen when he begins to feature regularly in the starting line-up…

Luka Jovic (Eintracht Frankfurt)

Stats:

• 9 goals/560 minutes
• 1 goal/72 minutes
• 29 shots
• 1 goal/3.2 shots
• % of team’s goals 9/26 (35%)
• 9 apps (6 starts)
• 2 assists
• 0 penalties

“There are players who need relatively few scoring chances,” Frankfurt coach Adi Hütter said recently. “Luka Jovic, for example, scores four times out of every five chances because he’s a poacher and, when he’s in the box, he knows where the goal is.”

The Eagles’ boss is not wrong. Well, actually — if we’re being pedantic (and we are) — he is. So far this season, Jovic has gobbled up a goal every 3.2 shots.

Of course, those numbers were given a deep massage by the five-goal haul the Serbian netted in the Matchday 8 mauling of Düsseldorf, but Jovic — at 20 — has already shown enough to suggest that though he may never match that once-in-a-lifetime single game tally again, undoing opposition defences is what he does best.

Watch: October Player of the Month candidate: Luka Jovic

Unlike the other three men here, he has also contributed assists to a further two goals, putting him — along with his rock-solid 5’11” physique — in the sort of ‘master of all trades’ mould that Bayern Munich’s perennial goalgetter Robert Lewandowski was cast from.

It is a comparison that is still premature, but not one that will look ridiculous in seasons to come, according to Hütter himself: “He has the potential to become a world-class striker.”