Not every player who stars in the Championship finds the transition to the Premier League easy. They can rip up the Championship on a consistent basis but the move to the Premier League could prove too big for them. While history is littered with examples of that, Hull City’s Jarrod Bowen could well present a very different case.
Bowen has seen a fellow Championship player in Che Adams move to the Premier League recently. While the Englishman is yet to completely get a full run at Southampton, his move isn’t exactly paying immediate rewards.
But Bowen would also look at Brighton’s Steven Alzate and how his rise from League One to the Premier League has gone under-the-radar. He has the example of Daniel James as well.
But Bowen is a very different breed altogether. Unlike Adams, he isn’t a striker. He is a creator and goalscorer combined into one. And unlike Adams, he already has the experience of playing under the Premier League lights back in Hull’s 2016-17 season.
That season was a spark in Bowen’s stature. His growth since then has been very much immaculate by some means. This season looks set to be his best one, in terms of production.
In the 2017-18 Championship season, Bowen had an impressive tally of 14 goals and two assists in 42 games. That is a very good number for a teenager or a 20-year-old. In the 2018-19 campaign, Bowen scored 22 goals and had four assists to his name while playing 46 Championship games. That was a clear improvement.
In this campaign, Bowen is already at 16 goals and five assists in only 25 Championship games. Considering how he has put up those numbers at the halfway point in the season, it is very impressive indeed. And rightly so, Bowen is getting the spotlight he deserves.
Leeds boss Marcelo Bielsa was full of praise for Bowen recently. He told reporters (via LeedsLive):
“You know how he plays. This season we can see a lot of good attackers in every team. And in most of the teams, not just those at the top. This is a very good player who unbalances the team. And he scores because he has a good shot.”
Indeed, the 23-year-old has taken 3.7 shots per game this season. His final product has been very decisive. He completes 2 dribbles per game and has a tally of 1.2 key passes per game as well. It shows that he isn’t just a good goalscorer or a shooter, but a very reliable creator as well.
There has been a clear rise in his stature and maturity as a player. Last season, Bowen took only 2.5 shots per game. He completed only 1.4 dribbles per game and had 1 key pass per game too. His decisiveness hasn’t increased, but the numbers have gone up. This has led to him being a more productive player.
This is a player who has been underperforming on his XG this season and this year. He is a constant threat on the right side of the pitch and has also played as a right midfielder in a 4-4-1-1 shape for Hull under Grant McCann. Not just that, but Bowen is proving to be reliable upfront as well.
He has been used as a striker on five occasions this season, racking up three goals and assisting once so far. Even otherwise, he is used on the striker position or in the number ten spot. In his initial spell in the Premier League, Bowen would also play on the left. But the right-wing has brought the best out of him.
And that Premier League experience at a young age is crucial for him. Bowen has been playing excellently over the last three seasons and a form like that warrants a bigger move. And considering how productive he is, expect that to come very soon indeed.
