I don't agree that a player has to score a lot of goals to get more attention, in this case a contract. I personally don't think a player has to score goals, but contributing greatly to the team's play is also very good. I don't deny that they need to score goals to win games, but for me personally, I don't care who scores, because it's a team game, not an individual game.
If our standard is to look at players by how many goals they score, then we will never see the genius midfielders that we have now.
Actually you're wrong, most of people who received Ballon d'Or are strikers and the highest goal is sexier than the highest assist.
A good midfielder do receive some attention especially manager who want to recruit a good player. But when it comes to statistic, striker is better than any other positions.
That is unfortunately true, there are not that many players that won without scoring bunch of goals. Last one I can remember must be Modric, who did not score all that much but still scored a bunch of goals that season, so there hasn't been all that many players that won without having much of a chance to do differently. Like when was the last time a goalkeeper actually won?
Last time I can remember a goalkeeper deserved it was just a few years ago, everyone focused on how Benzema scored bunch of goals and they won, but not many people realize that courtois definitely deserved ballon d'or over benzema that year since he was the one that saved their title chances by saving bunch of goals, that dude played much better than anyone else in that team, he was the one that made them win the title at la liga and also definitely allowed them to win the UCL title as well. I mean look at the saves at that final game alone, dude was like a wall there for sure.