Is Bunny Shaw the Greatest Striker in WSL Football History?

Bunny Shaw might be one of the greatest women’s footballers currently playing who is yet to win a league title. That run looks very likely to end, however, as Shaw’s Manchester City side are on the verge of sealing the Women’s Super League title in 2025-26 following a dominant campaign.

Not many City players can claim to have played a bigger part than Shaw, who leads the WSL goalscoring charts with 18 goals in just 19 appearances. That’s six clear of anyone else in the competition and eight more than any of her City teammates.

Another WSL Golden Boot award is on the horizon. This will be her third in a row after sharing the award with Alessia Russo last season (12) and winning it outright in 2023-24 with 21 goals.

Not only would Shaw be the first player in WSL history to win the Golden Boot in three successive seasons, but she would also be the only player to top the charts in three separate seasons altogether.

This season, her fifth in the English top flight, could end up being her best yet.

Making an Impact in Manchester

Manchester City signed Shaw in June 2021, no doubt enticed by the 32 goals she scored across two French Division 1 Féminine seasons with Bordeaux, and she’s continued her goalscoring exploits in England.

Since making her Man City debut against Everton in September 2021, Shaw has scored 80 goals in 90 WSL appearances, 28 more than any other player in the competition over the last five seasons.

Shaw ranks eighth for assists, too (18), and is just two shy of 100 goal involvements in her WSL career. It’s a race between her and teammate Lauren Hemp (99) to become the sixth player in WSL history to reach 100 goals and assists in the competition.

Goalscoring Machine

It’s Shaw’s ability to score goals at a frightening rate that has pushed her to the brink of becoming a WSL champion, though.

The Jamaican has averaged 1.08 goals per 90 across her career in the English top flight to date, by far the best rate of any player to play at least 1,000 minutes in the WSL since its inaugural season in 2011.

Chelsea’s Sam Kerr is behind her (0.92), with the Australian’s scoring rate slowing down in recent seasons due to a long-term injury – she’s netted just seven times in 23 games since 2023-24 – to allow Shaw to take her place at the top of the charts.

Shaw hasn’t needed many penalties to increase her scoring tally, either. Just three of her 80 WSL goals have come from the spot, while she’s consistently taken up great goalscoring positions during her time at Man City. No player on record has averaged a higher non-penalty goals per 90 rate than Shaw in the WSL (0.78).

She has displayed remarkable consistency in front of goal across her WSL career, converting 19.5% of her non-penalty shots. While that rate is below Kerr’s 21.1% average, it’s above the likes of Vivianne Miedema (17.4%), Stina Blackstenius (16.4%), Alessia Russo (14.4%) and Bethany England (18.5%).

Heading Up the Rankings

Much of Shaw’s threat comes from her aerial strength.

She’s scored a remarkable 31 headed goals in WSL history, five more any other player. Seven of those headers have come in 2025-26, with her tally just two off the all-time WSL seasonal record set by Shaw herself in 2023-24 (9).

In fact, a player has scored 7+ headed goals in a single WSL campaign on five occasions, and three of those were by Shaw (9 in 2023-24, 8 in 2022-23, 7 this season).

Remarkably, if you only counted her 31 headed goals, Shaw would still rank joint-32nd in the all-time WSL scoring charts.

The Race to the Top

Overall, only Miedema (97) and England (89) have scored more goals in WSL history than Shaw (80), but there’s every chance the Jamaican international could eventually surpass her City teammate at the top.

Scoring hat-tricks will help her get there faster, and Shaw certainly hasn’t got an issue doing that. The 29-year-old has eight hat-tricks in the WSL, three more than any other player. Those eight hat-tricks make up 12.5% of the total trebles scored in the 15-year history of the competition.

Her latest hat-trick – the quickest in WSL history with just 12 minutes and 37 seconds between the goals – against Tottenham on 21 March means that she’s now scored in 50 different WSL matches across her career, becoming just the sixth player to do so.

Given she’s scored in 50 of her 90 WSL appearances in total, only former Liverpool forward Louise Schillgard – who scored in eight of her 14 appearances in 2013 on the way to winning the title – has scored in a higher proportion of her WSL apps (57.1%) than Shaw (55.6%).

We can look at Miedema’s record across her first 90 games to get a sense of where Shaw is tracking against the current all-time top scorer. The Dutch record holder scored 74 goals in her first 90 games in the competition, six fewer than Shaw, and she didn’t hit 80 goals in the competition until her 106th appearance. Shaw is well on track.

The question is surely now a matter of if, not when, Shaw will overtake Miedema at the top of the WSL scoring charts. The gap between them was 30 before a ball had been kicked in 2024-25 and 25 at the start of 2025-26, but it’s now reduced to just 17.

Miedema is still scoring goals, but not at the regularity of Shaw, so should the latter remain in the WSL for seasons to come, it only feels like a matter of time until she takes top spot.

But for now, City fans can enjoy watching two of the WSL’s greatest ever players combining to potentially secure their first league title in 10 years.

Word credit: Opta Analyst