Dundee's talisman: Numbers behind Simon Murray's April

The Courier

02-05-2025

Simon Murray has had quite a week after his nomination for PFA Scotland Player of the Year was followed up by April's Premiership Player of the Month award.
The Dundee striker is in fine form as the season comes to a close.
Eight goals in the last eight league matches for Murray has seen the Dark Blues pull themselves out of the bottom two ahead of the weekend clash with Motherwell.
Just how good has Murray's April been? Courier Sport runs the numbers.
Murray ran himself into the ground against St Mirren at the start of the month, eventually being replaced after 89 minutes.
He played the full 90 in the following two matches against Hibs and Hearts.
As well as conducting Dundee fans in the stands, Murray has led the way in attacking stats.
Against St Mirren, the Dark Blues had six shots on goal – four of them came from Murray.
He had just three touches in the opposition area, all three of them first-time shots.
His xG (the likelihood of a shot being scored) alone was 0.56 compared to Dundee's total 0.65.
The Dee were well-beaten at Hibs overall. Murray had one touch in the Hibs box, resulting in a shot on target.
Against Hearts he was far busier. At Tynecastle he has seven touches in the home box, resulting in two shots with one of those on target.
His xG that day was only 0.15 (compared to Hearts' entire team xG of 1.46) but evidently that's all he needs.
In the three games Dundee had 19 shots with six on target. Four of those on target were from Murray himself from only seven efforts meaning 66% of dark blue shots on target in April came from the striker.
Across the entire month, Murray's xG was just 0.74. That means the expectation for the average player would be fewer than one goal from the chances that fell his way.
Murray didn't score fewer than one, he grabbed three.
Dundee had three matches in April, beating St Mirren and Hearts but losing to Hibs.
In those games they scored three times. Simon Murray scored all three.
Those three goals were more than any other Premiership player managed in April.
Nicolas Kuhn, Adam Idah, Reo Hatate and Kieron Bowie all grabbed two but nobody could match Dundee's talisman.
Murray's double saw the Dark Blues grab a priceless 2-0 home win over St Mirren.
The first he latched onto a loose ball in the area before firing low and hard beyond the goalkeeper.
The second was an opportunistic long-range strike after goalie Zach Hemming hit the striker with his clearance, Murray's 40-yard effort finding the corner.
Hibs was an off-day for the team and despite having Dundee's best chance of the game, Murray couldn't find the net against his old side.
He did, though, get back to scoring ways in the capital last weekend. Showing striker's instinct, Murray was in the right place at the right time to fire in the only goal of a 1-0 win at Hearts.
That leaves Murray level at the top of the Premiership scoring charts with 16 goals from 34 appearances.
His xG across the season is 11.3, slightly less than Daizen Maeda (11.8) who also has 16 Premiership goals this season.
Dundee's star striker is shining bright – can he be just as sparkling in May?