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Bunny Shaw might be the most complete striker in the world
Manchester City have a genuine superstar up top
Kim McCauley
March 07, 2023
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When Manchester City agreed to sign Khadija “Bunny” Shaw from Bordeaux, she seemed like the pretty obvious missing piece to a trophy-winning puzzle. City had some of the best talent in England in goal, defense, midfield and on the wings, but didn’t have a top class No. 9 like Chelsea’s Sam Kerr or Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema. Shaw had scored 22 goals in 20 appearances during her last season at Bordeaux, and was expected to give City an instant lift.
And Shaw did perform well in her first season, scoring 9 goals in just 795 minutes. But through some combination of being new to the league, fitness issues, and the club’s reverence for Ellen White in her final season, Shaw never really hit her stride. This season has been a completely different story — Shaw is now completely settled in, clearly first choice, and maximizing the opportunity.
Shaw leads FA WSL with 13 goals so far this year, well ahead of next-best Rachel Daly, who has 10. But more impressive than that is how much of a complete presence she’s been as City’s center forward. With her 6’0” frame and experience playing as a No. 10 occasionally for her national team, Shaw contributes hold-up play, aerial presence, and playmaking. She’s second on her team with 4 assists this season. When I talked to her college coach in 2018, Brian Pensky said he thought she’d be a world class center back too.
Her current manager Gareth Taylor has heaped praise on her regularly for the stuff she’s doing besides scoring goals. After a win over Everton in November:
“She does so much more than score goals. The way she takes the hits as well as giving the hits out. She’s also very strong and she’s looking a lot fitter. She’s found a rhythm now in knowing she’s the focal point of the team.”
“She’s more than goals, Bunny, but when she’s scoring like that and the finishes she’s had today, left foot, right foot, she’s in real hot form and continuing it. It’s not a purple patch. To do it over the period of time she has done is really special. She’s such a formidable opponent to play against I’d imagine. It’s great to have her.”
Shaw had 4 goals in that game, and a hat trick over the weekend against a more formidable opponent in Tottenham Hotspur, giving her 7 goals over her last 2 games. But I think there’s way more to come from Shaw because her goals haven’t even been close to her best plays in recent matches.
This assist against Arsenal shows off her defensive, dribbling, physical and passing skills all in one play.
There were two of her shots against Tottenham that I thought were significantly more impressive than the goals she scored, though you can watch those first:
In this move 5 minutes into the game, Shaw shows off some excellent movement to beat the offside trap and get free on the box while Tottenham’s defense is well set up, then hit a quality first-time shot with her left foot, even though she doesn’t score.
This strike from the edge of the area is even better. Shaw is in a bunch of traffic and doesn’t appear to have a good angle for a shot, but manages to bait her defender into making a poor tackle, opening up some space, and she hits a powerful shot on target that Tottenham keeper Tinja-Riika Korpela denies with an excellent save.
Shaw is generating both an incredible volume of shots and high quality shots. She has a pretty ridiculous 0.98 xG per 90 in all competitions in a City shirt, and she’s scored 43 goals from 36.72 xG, according to WyScout’s xG model. She might be getting a bit lucky, but she’d still be averaging a goal every game if she started regressing to her xG.
Her 0.22 xG per shot is especially impressive given how many low xG value headers she gets on the end of that other strikers wouldn’t even get close to contesting, which should artificially depress her xG per shot. Instead, her xG per shot is exactly on pace with Daly (0.23) and Kerr (0.22).
I don’t think we’ve yet reached a point where Shaw is a better goal-scorer than Kerr, or a better playmaker than Miedema, or a better hold-up player than Alex Morgan. There are a small handful of aerial specialist strikers who have a claim to being a bit better than Shaw at that too. But I think she’s the only striker who can legitimately claim to be top 5 at all of these things, and I think that gives her a claim to be the most complete striker in the world at present.