Vincent Janssen was very bad for Spurs to start the 2016/2017 season. He was bad because he wasn’t creating shots, not because he wasn’t finishing shots. In his first run deputizing Harry Kane, Spurs lacked a final product for a sustained period of time and Janssen’s inability to be in front of goal was a large part of that.

The fact that he could not seem to get in front of net seemed weird on its face, after Janssen led the Eredivisie in shots from the 6 yard box per 90 in 2015/2016 and was second in shots in the penalty area per 90 that season as well.

Doing what any soccer fan does, I looked up Janssen’s YouTube highlights from last season at Alkmaar to see how and where he was scoring goals. What became clear, which the data show, but is even more obvious in the tape, is just how bad Eredivisie defenses are, and how porous they are in the box in particular. Janssen was frequently scoring while trailing play, or receiving a throughball that started well outside the box. Janssen was frequently able to pick up the ball in the box and move towards the net to get a shot off. Janssen rarely had to make runs off the back shoulder to get in front of net for a shot.

Perhaps this is why, for so much of the first half of 2016/2017 Janssen looked like he didn’t have a nose for goal. The space that the Eredivisie defenses left in the box meant Janssen didn’t have to typically do the sorts of things that Premier League strikers do to find the goal, and instead he went looking for where the space was — at the top of the box, with a number of defenders between Janssen in the goal. He’d frequently fade on a run, instead of going towards the net, peeling back for space. This left him taking a bunch of low xG shots from the edges of the box. His hold up (post up) play was nice, but seemed to be the only way he was contributing, and he seemed almost afraid to face the goal. His shot chart looked like this with lots of shots from the edges of the area:

After that initial run, Janssen rarely saw the pitch in league play. Pocchetino often banishes players who will be shipped out the next season so this was a disconcerting sign. But some more positive rumblings about his ethic in training led him to get another shot when Kane went down for a second time.

For the first 45 minutes of the first match against Burnley, playing in Spurs successful 3–4–3, Janssen was totally lost, and I’d had it. He wasn’t making the runs necessary for a Premier League striker and I thought perhaps he just didn’t have a nose for goal. But when Harry Winks and Victor Wanyama were forced off, and Spurs reverted to their familiar 4–2–3–1 from last season, Janssen started to look much more at ease if only for 15 more minutes of play.

He didn’t start the next match, but it was his beautiful backheel assist as a sub that spurred the victory, and he took two shots on target — one just outside the 6 — in his 30 minutes. Against Watford he again looked like he was making the right sorts of runs to score goals, looking to move forward and even going offside which he has seemed afraid to do prior. While he bottled a sitter, his movement towards the face of goal was encouraging.

He finally got his open play goal against Bournemouth while sitting right in front of the net, putting in a rebound of his own shot in just 8 minutes of play. But it was actually a bit of play before the goal that made me think Janssen was learning to play in the EPL. With Bournemouth’s line sitting high in the box, Janssen made a nicely timed run off the back shoulder and then regrouped to try to find a pocket of space in front of the goal. It was just a little thing that top strikers do constantly but which he seemed unable to do before.

His 7 shots and 6 on target over the 165 or so minutes he’s played since Kane went down in March are a nice rate, if inflated a bit by sub effects. In his first 600 minutes in the EPL, Janssen was taking about 3 shots a game, and that was up to 4 over the last 165 minutes, with a strong uptick in the rate those were put on target. Here’s that shot chart, with all of his shots coming in the box:

At just 22 and adjusting to a new league, Janssen may be beginning to find his fit for Spurs. As few as three weeks ago, he seemed like a potential bust, and I was ready to write him off, but his play these past few weeks has made me reconsider and the data matches the eye test.