Swansea City are in the 16th position on the EFL Championship points table with a goal difference of -11. Of their 41 goals scored this season, 15 belong to one man named Joel Piroe, which is around 36.59% of all Swansea’s goals. The Dutch striker has had his career-best season by far, and there are still close to two months left in the season.
The above chart shows the attacking performances of Joel Piroe relative to the rest of the league. Piroe has netted 15 goals at a rate of 0.46 goals per 90, which puts him in the upper quintile. What is more, is that he is outperforming his expected goals (xG) output by a significant margin. His xG is 0.28 goals per game. He takes 2.3 shots per game, shooting exactly 50% of them on target. He has attempted 2.3 dribbles per game, completing a solid 63% of them.
Seen above is the shot map of Joel Piroe for Swansea City this season. Nearly a third of his goals have come from outside the box, but he has also missed quite a few big chances, which had an xG value of 0.35 or more. Piroe has taken 79 shots so far, with nearly half of them being on target. On average, Piroe has needed 5.27 shots for every goal he has netted. Had he not missed a few clear chances, he could have scored even more goals by now.
In the above chart, we can see the pass sonar, xT timeline, and the xT map of Joel Piroe this season. As observed in the xT timeline, Piroe is not creating threats frequently. But his role is not of threat creation. He is there simply to finish off the chances created by his teammates. Only on one occasion did Piroe generate an xT value of over 0.5 in the timeline. Whenever he has produced a threat, he has done it in the final third just outside the penalty box.
Joel Piroe has had a very good campaign with Swansea City thus far. He will hope to finish the season strongly with the team. His supporting cast has also netted goals, but no other Swansea player has reached double figures. However, the team’s mid-table status can be put down to a weak defense, having conceded 52 goals
