Deadly Dominic: Solanke’s attacking prowess can fire Bournemouth to the Premier League – data analysis | OneFootball

Bournemouth beat Cardiff City 1-0 away from home to grab their third consecutive win in the EFL Championship. They have now moved to the top of the league table and have a two-point lead over previous leaders Fulham and West Brom. Bournemouth are one of the two sides who have not lost a single game this season and have been prolific under the management of Scott Parker.

Bournemouth have now scored 14 goals in their eight league games and Dominic Solanke is their topmost contributor to this tally of goals. Solanke has scored five goals in his last six games. He had a slow start to the season as he was not on the scoresheet for Bournemouth in their first two games, but since then has been in very good form and is the third-highest goalscorer in the league.

When looking at the above chart, the general rule is that the longer the bar the better the performance. We can also see the league average in the middle and the percentage is the percentile rank the player is in.

As seen in the above viz, Solanke has a high percentage in most of the attacking stats and is far better than the average league values. He has recorded a high xG of 0.48 per 90 minutes and also has a high shot on target percentage of 59.09%. Solanke has attempted 5.378 attacking actions per 90 minutes and 57.78% of those actions were successful.

The above viz shows us the various pass receive locations for Solanke. Playing as a striker it is fairly obvious that he will receive most of the passes in the final third, but in this case, we can observe that he has dropped deep very often to receive the ball. Scott Parker has been using a pre-choreographed system in which his players have to make specific movements off the ball in order to receive a pass and move the ball further up the pitch. This requires Solanke to drop deep and play short one-twos with the midfielders to create space for his wide forwards.

From the above shot map, we can see that more than 90% of the shots Solanke has attempted have been taken from inside the penalty area. He has scored all of his five goals from these positions and has been the most effective in these areas.

One of the major reasons for the goals Solanke has scored are the passes he has received from his teammates. We can see that most of the passes played to him have a high expected threat because they are played in the right areas from where he can have a high chance of scoring. David Brooks and Jaidon Anthony have the highest xT from the passes they have made to him.

Dominic Solanke has been heavily criticised by some in the past but has aligned himself to be an important part of the Bournemouth squad and a key to the system that Scott Parker has adapted at the club. He will be playing an important role in Bournemouth’s journey to climb back into the top tier of the country.