Bangkok United’s midfielder spent seven Thai League 1 seasons as a passer who almost never shot. Three matches into 2026/27, he is the league’s joint second-top scorer. The numbers say the change is real, even if the sample is not yet

There are players whose goals feel inevitable and players whose goals feel like a clerical error. For most of his career Weerathep Pomphan has belonged firmly to a third category: the midfielder whose goals you struggle to remember because there have barely been any.

Before this season he had played 12,831 minutes of Thai League 1 football across seven campaigns for Muangthong United and Bangkok United. He had scored once. Three matches into 2026/27, he has three: a brace in the 3–1 win over Sisaket United on the opening weekend, at 22 and 39 minutes, and the opener after 15 minutes of the 3–2 win over Pathum United last Sunday. Only Guilherme Bissoli, with four, has scored more in the division. Raniel Santana has three too. Both are Brazilian centre-forwards. Weerathep is a 30-year-old Thai midfielder with, by FotMob’s count, 50 caps and no international goals.

He was second in Wednesday’s Thailand’s Top 10, behind Peeradol Chamratsamee, and he is the most striking story in it. Peeradol is doing what Peeradol has always done, only more so. Weerathep is doing something he has never done.

What the profile shows

The slice that leaps out is at the top. His non-penalty expected goals, a measure of the quality of the chances he has had, comes to 0.87 per 90 minutes, the highest of any midfielder in the league. In absolute terms his 2.29 npxG is second in the whole division among players with 180 minutes or more, Thai or foreign, behind only Bissoli. None of it has come from the penalty spot.

Just as important is how he is getting there. He has taken six shots, which is not a lot. But 2.29 expected goals from six shots works out at almost 0.4 per attempt: these are not hopeful efforts from 25 yards but chances inside the box, the kind a striker gets. Three of the six were on target and all three went in. That part will not last; nobody converts at 50%. The underlying positions are the part worth paying attention to.

Then look at the other side of the chart. Key passes: none, which puts him in the 5th percentile. Expected assists, the 37th. Duels won, the 33rd. He is still passing plenty, 54 times per 90 at 84% completion, but the creator has gone.

The mirror image

Put last season’s profile next to this one and it almost looks like a different player. In 2025/26 Weerathep made more passes per 90 than any midfielder in the league, 69 of them, at 88% completion. He was in the 92nd percentile for expected assists and the 83rd for key passes. His npxG sat in the 12th percentile, at 0.04 per 90. He took 0.55 shots per 90; this season it is 2.29. He scored no league goals and set up four.

In other words, the shape has flipped. Last season he was the midfielder who started moves from deep. This season, Bangkok United appear to be using him as the midfielder who finishes them, arriving late in the box rather than supplying the pass into it. Whether that is a tactical decision, a change of partner beside him or simply three matches of good timing is something the numbers cannot tell us. But the npxG says he is getting into those positions, not just profiting from deflections.

The career so far

Weerathep came late to the top flight. He started at Chamchuri United, joined Muangthong United in 2019, and moved to Bangkok United in January 2024. At both clubs he became a reliable, high-volume passer: six and seven league assists in 2022/23 and 2023/24, and the kind of 2,000-minute seasons that keep a player in national team squads. What he never did was score.

What to watch

The caveat has to come first, and loudly: three matches, 236 minutes, six shots. One quiet afternoon could halve most of these numbers, and a 50% conversion rate will come down. His 7.41 average match rating owes a lot to the goals.

The more telling question is the npxG. If he is still getting 0.5 or more per 90 by the end of October, this is a genuine change of role, not a hot streak. The other is whether the creativity returns alongside it or has been traded for it.

He will spend the international break watching. Weerathep is not in Anthony Hudson’s 23-man Thailand squad for the inaugural FIFA ASEAN Cup, which runs until 5 October. Hudson’s explanation, as reported in the Vietnamese press, goes back to the summer: he tried to bring Weerathep and Ben Davis in for August’s ASEAN Championship, but neither could guarantee he would be available. With so little preparation time before this tournament, Hudson says, he has stuck with the midfielders who played then. Three league goals in three matches is a louder argument than most, but for now Weerathep has to make it at Bangkok United, not for Thailand.

Bangkok United go to Lamphun Warrior on 11 October after the international break. We’ll be watching where he picks the ball up.

Data FootyStats. Career dates: FotMob.