Western Sydney Wanderers have endured a wretched campaign this year, with only four wins from 20 matches so far in the A-League. It will likely be the second consecutive year that the Wanderers’ season ends early and without finals to look forward to.

There is plenty of blame to go around for why this is the case, from the tactics of their manager Markus Babbel to the horrors of goalkeeper Vedran Janjetovic. Another concerning development is the drop of form from their marquee striker Oriol Riera, who’s only scored six goals so far this season, a big drop from his first year when he was the second highest goal scorer in the league with 15.

Some have wondered how Riera keeps getting into the starting line-up even though he is so clearly out of touch and new arrivals like Kwame Yeboah or Mitchell Duke would be better off in that striker position.

When a marquee player is misfiring as much as the Spaniard is, it’s only understandable that fans think his time might be over at Western Sydney, with his contract ending at the end of this season.

However, if Babbel and his staff are indeed thinking of letting Riera go, they might want to reconsider, because there is enough there to suggest that the forward will be able to get back to his rampaging best soon enough.

If you are having trouble viewing the graph, please click the link on the caption which should be able to give you a better view of the graph.

As usual, most of the statistics used in this blog are from football analytics platform Wyscout, with the one exception being the number of shots inside the box, which was retrieved from the A-League website.

Expected Goals

Expected goals (xG) as a metric is still unpopular in some parts of the footballing community. After all, the only thing that matters is whether they really did score. To some degree, yes, but xG is still a strong way of understanding what kind of chances players and teams are creating.

Regardless, most people will be surprised by the huge differentials between Riera and some of the other top strikers in the A-League when comparing their xG with their actual goal tally.

As you can see, most of the strikers are basically on par with their xG, with a variance of a few goals. That is, except for the Wanderers striker, Riera’s goals and xG differential is 5.69.

This tells us two things: Riera has been greatly unlucky when it comes to putting chances away, but more importantly, it reveals that he is still getting into dangerous positions and taking shots that have a good chance of going in.

We already know that Riera can put goals away from last season, so it’s hard to say that the differential in xG is a case of absolutely horrid finishing. Most of the time, players revert back to something close to their xG, and so he should start finding the back of the net once again soon enough.

Efficiency in the box

Riera’s main strength as a striker last season came from his ability to read play and become a poacher in the box. He was lethal when it came to putting crosses away and knew where to be at the exact time to collect on a rebound or a mistake from an opposition defender.

He hasn’t lost that keen awareness either, as the graph above shows, Riera is one of the most efficient when it comes to converting his touches into shots. He doesn’t waste time. Once he has the ball, you can trust him to take a shot with his first touch in the box.

As a striker, this is one of the most important qualities to have, as taking too many touches in the box gives defenders plenty of opportunities to nick the ball and clear it from danger.

Some of those shots will have come from headers — Riera has the most headed shots in the league with 26 — which you really only get one touch with anyway. However, the former Barcelona man has proven he is a potent threat in the air, so if he maintains his high efficiency in front of goal, he will reap the rewards soon enough.

Turning shots into goals

Riera is second in the league when it comes to taking shots in the league, only behind Newcastle Jets’ Dimitri Petratos, whose strikes are almost exclusively outside the box.

Other than Petratos, Riera is regularly taking a chance and his high number of shots — which we’ve also deciphered are regularly inside the box — compared to other leading strikers suggest that he is getting into the right positions to find the back of the net.

Although Riera has been unlucky with his goal scoring numbers compared to some of the more elite strikers in the league, such as Sydney’s Adam Le Fondre or the now departed Adam Taggart, he is showing that he can match them.

A common football cliche is that “you can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket”. Riera has spent a lot of money at the local newsagency but he hasn’t found the jackpot just yet. It appears that he should be able to find that magic number in the near future, he just needs to keep buying tickets (which is, funnily enough, exactly what my grandmother keeps telling me).

Another stat that emphasises Riera’s ability to get into good positions and take shots is his shots to xG ratio. This will tell us if players are taking worthwhile shots that have a good chance of going in or whether they are just shooting for the sake of it.

As you can see, the aforementioned Petratos is definitely the latter, with plenty of shots but still a low xG confirming that he would be better of passing it rather than taking a shot from distance.

Riera on the other hand, is on par with the league’s best strikers, only behind Perth’s Andy Keogh for xG per game. Not only does Riera take shots that give him a good chance, but he takes those kinds of shots regularly.

If Riera can find some confidence in front of goal and continues to get into good positions, he should be just as lethal as Taggart was before he left or the current leading goalscorer Le Fondre.

Ultimately, it might be easy to say that Riera should be dropped from the Wanderers line-up for not scoring, but the underlying numbers suggest that he has not changed much from last season. If he keeps on playing like he has so far, Riera will be able to return to the form that made him one of the league’s most prolific strikers.

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