Dani Gómez: Analyzing Valencia’s New Striker
After Valencia CF’s horrendous end to the season which saw them fall positions and not qualify for Europe this season, they are looking to strengthen the squad, especially the striker position as they were one of the teams with the fewest shots. To do this, they have signed Levante’s center forward Dani Gómez. In this article, we will be diving into how Dani Gómez can take Valencia CF back to Europe.
Name: Dani Gómez
Position: Center Forward
Country: Spain
Age: 26
Height: 178cm
Preferred Foot: Right
Last Club: Levante
Dani Gómez was brought up the ranks of Real Madrid before being loaned out to Tenerife. After a successful loan spell there, he was purchased by Levante for €2.5 million. At Levante, he spent two seasons before being loaned out to Espanyol. The next season he remained at Levante where he scored 5 goals in the second division.
Here we can see that Dani Gómez has the most xG which indicates his ability to get into goal-scoring positions. Nonetheless, he has the least goals scored showcasing his poor capacity to put the ball into the back of the net. This is an aspect that must improve if he is to be important as in Valencia CF he will have to be more effective.
In this image, we can observe that Dani Gómez has the most expected assists, highlighting his ability to create chances. This statistic also indicates that his profile may not be that of a target man due to his high xA.
From this image, we can deduce that Dani Gómez has an agile profile as he attempts almost 6 dribbles per 90 with more than a 40% success rate. This showcases his dribbling ability and tells us that he is not a target man and perhaps likes to drop deep and fall on the wing to receive the ball and carry out these actions.
Here we can see that Dani Gómez has very similar values to that of Valencia’s strikers indicating that does not get involved a lot in the build-up.
In this image, we can see that Dani Gómez has very low values and once more this indicates that he has a different profile to Valencia’s current center forwards.
This chart compares Dani Gómez with the rest of the players in his league who play in his position using percentiles in different aspects of the game. The percentiles work in the way that the higher the number the better he is in that aspect of the game, for example, if the value is 87, that means he is better than 87% of the players he is compared to.
In this image, we can see that Dani Gómez is in a high percentile for xG and xA as well as in actions leading to shots. This highlights his ability to create chances which is better than that of 70% of the other center forwards in the second division. This is important for a team like Valencia that lacks players with the ability to create goal-scoring opportunities and had one of the lowest xG values last season.
Furthermore, in possession aspects, we can observe that Dani Gómez is in a very high percentile for the success rate of passes, dribbles completed, progressive dribbles, and progressive passes received. This indicates once more that he is not a player that likes to stay up front but rather looks for the ball and gives passing lanes to receive the ball higher up the pitch, from there use his dribbling ability to create opportunities.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Dani Gómez is a player who likes to receive the ball and create chances using his dribbling ability. He gives Valencia another profile of a striker which is something they were demanding, in addition, he has already played under current manager Rubén Baraja who was able to make the most of his strengths. Nonetheless, the seasons he has played in Spain’s top-flight are not his most successful, so how he will play in Valencia CF is a question mark and it is down to the manager to make the most out of him.
By: Juan Fernandez Valencia / @ScoutLaLiga
Featured Image: @GabFoligno / DeFodi Images