What The Stats Say - Why Lewandowski, Haaland and Sancho make Borussia Dortmund v Bayern Munich must-see TV

Paul Macdonald of FootballCritic goes inside the numbers to look at the red-hot superstars who make Borussia Dortmund’s top-of-the-table Bundesliga showdown with Bayern Munich a classic  TV matchup. 

Robert Lewandowski, Jadon Sancho and Erling Haaland are just some of the huge names who will take centre stage at Signal Iduna Park on Tuesday night. And the stats do not lie as we look at why they have created headlines week after week this season.

You can watch the action unfold exclusively live on BT Sport where we will be showing every single Bundesliga match for the rest of the season - the only major league currently up-and-running following the coronavirus postponement.

Robert Lewandowski - statistically better than ever

Midway through the 2018/19 season, Bayern appeared as if they were preparing for the long-term replacement of Robert Lewandowski. Timo Werner was the prime candidate, and doing what Bayern usually do - buy up the very best Bundesliga talent - it seemed like an obvious fit. 

But it’s clear that Lewandowski took offence to the perception that he was on the decline, and has spent much of the 2019/20 season pointing this out. 

The Pole is already on 41 goals for this season with seven Bundesliga games to play - maybe more if the Champions League and DFB Pokal can be finished - at a rate of 1.21 goals P90 (goals per 90 minutes played). 

This is easily the best rate in Europe this season among players in the top five leagues.

When looking at league performances specifically, we see that his expected goals of 25.2 on a total of 27 Bundesliga goals shows that he isn’t outperforming his incredible total - he is exactly where he should be. 

Lewandowski is 31 now, in a league where some of the best young talents in the world reside, and he’s still schooling them as an absolute master of the goalscoring art. 

The Polish forward, coupled with the superb form of Serge Gnabry (20 Bundesliga goals + assists) and a resurgent Thomas Muller (24 Bundesliga goals + assists) have made Bayern one of the most exciting attacking sides in Europe. 

Jadon Sancho isn’t just good, he’s Mbappe good

Despite appearing on BT Sport regularly, the true brilliance of Jadon Sancho is still relatively unclear to the average Premier League fan - even if he is regularly linked with Manchester United.

Sancho isn’t just a great player, he is a generational talent who will be in the conversation with Kylian Mbappe as a future Ballon d’Or winner. The eyes hint at this, the numbers prove it.

In terms of goal contributions P90 - a combination of goals and assists per ninety minutes played - his score of 1.47 is second only to Lionel Messi in Europe’s top five leagues. But take penalties out of the equation and Sancho is the best in Europe. 

Looking at the table above, we can see that Sancho competes and regularly exceeds the numbers put up by Mbappe, and it should be noted that Dortmund aren’t as dominant in the Bundesliga as the Parisians are in Ligue 1, making Sancho’s numbers all the more striking.

A caveat which should be factored in is that Sancho is outperforming his expected goals (xG) and expected assists (xA) by quite a margin (17.3 v 30 actual) but this also shows a player who is extremely accurate in his finishing and one that is shooting from the right places. 

De Klassieker against Bayern, exclusively live on BT Sport, could be a huge moment for him to transcend the statistics and move up to the highest echelon of world talents.

Erling Haaland - talking with his feet, and making a big noise

Sancho’s task is made just a little easier playing alongside some talented team-mates. Erling Haaland has 10 goals and two assists in just 690 minutes, equalling a goal contribution every 57.5 minutes of Bundesliga action. 

He might not like to talk too much - see his post-match press conferences - but he is letting his record speak for itself. In all competitions Haaland has 41 goals in 37 appearances, or the equivalent of a goal every 60 minutes of playing time. 

He is doing in Dortmund exactly what he did for RB Salzburg and it’s setting him up as one of the most coveted strikers in the game. How long Dortmund can hold onto him, and indeed Sancho, is an entirely different question.

Dortmund v Bayern - goals guaranteed?

Dortmund (74) and Bayern (80) have scored 154 goals between them this season - only PSG with 75 gets anywhere near those totals in Europe’s top five leagues.

Their matches are littered with goals and an exciting spectacle is pretty much guaranteed. This is one of the biggest meetings in recent seasons, with Dortmund just four points behind seven-time defending champions Bayern in the Bundesliga table.