Artem Dovbyk had a breakout season last year playing for Girona; a season which allowed him to be the Pichichi of La Liga and his team to reach the qualification to the next Champions League. With his national team did not perform well enough in the last European Championship in Germany, therefore many doubts arise in relation to his transfer to AS Roma.
In this post I will try to find out in which way Girona allowed him to score and to perform at his best. Given the fact AS Roma is very close to sign him, It would beneficial for giallorossi supporters to understand which efforts on a tactical point of view Daniele De Rossi is required to do in order to allow the Ukrainan forward to be the right investment for the team.
In order to perform this analysis I tried to dissect the open-play goals scored by Dovbyk in the last season in La Liga in order to describe the pattern who allowed him to score. Together with this I will show some interesting stats which explain his style of play.
LATERAL PLAY AND MANY PLAYERS IN PENALTY AREA
One of the main pattern of the goal scored by Girona and by Dovbyk in particular is given by the number of players committed in the attacking phases of the team. Girona was good in occupying the spaces in the last third and, when the central spaces was closed, it was the right moment to give the ball to Savio and then accelerate from the flanks. This pattern worked many times since the Catalan team was able to fill the penalty area with many players.
First example is coming from the match against Sevilla. The play is progressed on the left flank through an acceleration by Savio. In the mean time, in addition to Dovbyk, Portu runs towards the close post, while the Ukrainan forward position himself on the far post getting away from the left central defender. The decoy run of Portu and the attack from the right of Couto get the defensive line of Sevilla full busy allowing Dovbyk to create separation from him and the defender and, consequently, being able to receive the cross from Savio. In this situation Girona had four players in the penalty area and one player (Gutierrez) running in. This helps a lot Dovbyk in getting away from markers.
Same here against Alaves, in this case there are six players in the penalty area. Here again the opponent's defence cannot be fully focused on Dovbyk. Alaves try to zonally defend in order to restrict the options by using the offside trap. Here comes Dovbyk ability to read the strategy of the defence, therefore he takes his position in the center focusing on avoiding the offside. While his teammate shoots, Alaves defense try to rise up to create the offisde trap, Dovbyk is able to avoid the trap and get ready to score on the rebound from the save of the goalkeeper. Again, in this situation, the next AS Roma forward demonstrated his ability in the penalty area together with the ability of his teammates to cover consistently the same zone.
The goal scored against Osasuna is very similar to the one scored against Sevilla. Here again Dovbyk uses the run in the penalty area of his teammates to create hesitation for his marker allowing him to get away on the far post and receive the cross from Gutierrez. The pattern is still recognizable: four players occupy the penalty area getting Osasuna's defensive line very busy and exposed to mistake. The mistake happens allowing Dovbyk to be free on the far post and score.
The Ukrainian forward is also in his comfort zone against zonal defenses. The focus the opponents have on the ball and on the teammates allows Dovbyk to not being man-marked and this is good for him to get away from his closest defender and attack the far post. Here against Villarreal is much more evident how the defense is fully focused on the ball allowing him to choose the best position to score. Also in this example Dovbyk is not alone in the penalty area, still there are four Girona players there to create much more confusion for the opponents.
Same here against Real Sociedad, Girona progress in the penalty area from the flank and then occupies it with four players. Still Dovbyk get away from markers by moving to the far post. The pattern is still very clear both in terms of team strategy and in terms of individual tactic of the player. Girona supports attacking plays with many players, this helps Dovbyk to get away from markers very easily. Girona created the best environment to allow his forward to score and being always dangerous for the opponents.
This goal against Valencia is very similar: here Girona reaches the penalty area through a wide combination, once the ball is in the penalty area there are five players in the last 10 meters spread horizontally. Also in this situation Dovbyk choose to attack the far post completing the occupation of the penalty area from his teammates.
Also numbers confirm the purpose of this strategy: within the forwards playing in the top 5 tournaments last season, Dovbyk is the player who had the most higher quality per shot. Using data from
Wyscout is much more simple to give a graphic visual of how much the Ukrainian forward benefited from the offensive strategy of his team. The average amount of shots taken by Dovbyk last season was not very high, while the expected goals per shot are the highest. Will be AS Roma able to provide the same support? That's the challenge for Daniele De Rossi.
ATTACKING THE DEPTH
So far we described Dovbyk's ability to get away from defenders in the penalty area and how much important was the teammates to allow him to do so. Linked to his ability to get away from defenders there is his ability to attack the depth. In the Girona's tactical strategy he was the player delegated to find the space behind the defensive line. This was a very strategic duty since it used to force opponent's defensive line to drop deep to cover his runs and creating more spaces between the line for the technical midfield of Girona. By principle of the positional superiority, if defensive line decided to not drop deeper, the runs of the Ukrainian forwards would then be the best option for Girona to accelerate the attack from progression zone.
Here, against Sevilla, there is a transition carried by Savio, this made the defense collapse on that side of the pitch, Dovbyk started to run away from the closest defender and attacks the space behind him. This will allow him to receive the ball in the penalty area on the far post with the empty net in front of him. Easy goal (high xG, see above) but good preparation from him. Of course, as stated above, it is again decisive the decoy run from Portu which contributed to make Seville defense to collapse on that side of the pitch creating a huge space in the center-right, taking the best benefit from the transition situation.
In the same match against Sevilla there is another transition situation in which Dovbyk is the main target to conduct the counter-attack. This is something that he is able to do due to his instinct to run towards the penalty area. In this situation he was able to anticipate his run enough to get away from the rest defense of Sevilla defender. This shows how much is important for him to be served behind the defense rather than being a target man. Dovbyk acts at his best if he is able to create separation from the defender.
The transition play will be then finalized after he carried the ball towards the limit of the penalty area and, again, he is able to find the space to shoot on target thanks to the decoy run of Portu which attract the Sevilla defender and creates the space for Dovbyk to attack. Also in this case the individual skills of the Ukrainian player are paired with the movement and the occupation of the spaces of his teammates.
The pattern is very similar also in this goal against Barcelona: the difference here is that this is not a transition situation (even the screenshot may look like it was) and that Dovbyk is not the initial target. However the dynamic is very similar, the ball is played vertically to Tsygankov who is pairing Dovbyk in the last line to keep the Barcelona's defense busy. Here the defenders took the decision to not cover the run of the two Girona players (see above about positional superiority) allowing the Ukrainian player to use his run to score again an other easy goal.
Against Almeria, there is an other transition created by a ball won in the opponent's half. As soon as his teammates recover the ball, Dovbyk immediately runs to create a vertical option. This demonstrates how much he is focused on verticality and looking to reach the penalty area as soon as possible. His instinct is to run towards the goal, for this reason he is not keen to play as an associative forward. As we will see below he is not involved in the possession phase of his team, however he is very important in creating space through his movements without ball in vertical and manipulating the opponent's defences.
Again, the stats are confirming this: Dovbyk is one of the forwards less involved in terms of passing. He is under par for both passes received and passes completed per match. Dovbyk is the red point in the scatter plot together with other forwards focused on giving depth and to finalize the job of their teammates. It is also interesting to notice that at the opposite side of this diagram there is Paulo Dybala, most likely the player who will play behind him in the AS Roma team next season, therefore will be very interesting to look those two players integrating in the mechanism of Daniele De Rossi formation.
The only goal scored in which Dovbyk starts playing opposite to the goal was against Almeria, where he closed a one-two with Blind which moved his marker far from him, therefore the Dutch defender closed the triangle giving the ball back to him who then moved towards the goal. This is not a typical play from Dovbyk, however in specific circumstances he can have quick combination with his teammates in order to create and attacks spaces.
GETTING AWAY FROM MARKER
What we learnt so far is that Dovbyk is a player who is good in getting away from marker, he recognizes the space to attack and is very smart is finding the right position in the penalty area. Therefore we will continue to dissect his goal in the last La Liga season where we can more appreciate his abilities in the penalty area.
Against Rayo Vallecano we can start appreciating first of all his ability to help the ball progression of his team by pinning the two central defenders. This creates distance within the central and lateral zone, which is the zone Girona will exploit to reach the penalty area. Michel created a fantastic team which success was given by the high level of skills of the midfielder in order to have an always clean build-up and progression phase, the ability in the 1vs1 on the wings and finally Dovbyk's ability to attack depth and creating additional spaces. This work without the ball cannot be tracked by stats but can be easily tracked by the quality of the positional attacks of his team.
Here, once the ball is played to the wing, we can appreciate more his quality in recognizing the space available in the penalty area to receive the pass and then score. In my opinion this is one of the best goals scored by Dovbyk in the last season, cause he is alone in the penalty area against the Rayo's defense, but he used his smart understanding of play to get away from his marker creating enough space to shoot. This is a goal of a real number 9 which also shows that even if he is 190 cm tall, he prefers to use the brain rather than his body to win duels against defenders.
On the contrary, he is very adverse in having duels, and stats demonstrate this: last season he had just 6,78 duels per match and he won just 16,36% of them. This means that if you are looking for a typical big forward able to win duels and to be served through long balls like an old English target man, you are totally wrong. This is the main risk Dovbyk will face in his Italian experience: indeed Italy is a country where the physical bias are still dominant in the mindset of many pundits, journalists and also old school coaches, therefore this is the main effort Daniele De Rossi is required to have in order to get the best from his new number 9.
Similar situation is represented here against Atletico Madrid: here the ball progresses through an other acceleration from Savio; Dovbyk follows by running in the space behind the defense getting him available to receive a through ball from Savio itself. This would be enough to reach a favorable situation to shoot, however the movement of the forward created space also for an alternative route for Savio to pass on the right. The Brazilian winger was maybe afraid Atletico's defense could be able to trap Dobvyk in offside.
The choice is still optimal cause the run behind the defense gives Dovbyk an advantage to his markers, therefore is easy to find himself free to receive the pass on the far post and score an other empty net goal. An other easy goal but still build through a perfect team play and the right movement of the Ukrainan forward behind the defensive line which allowed him to stay again unmarked in the hearth of the penalty area.
Against Betis, instead, Girona progresses the play centrally by manipulating the opponent's shape. As soon the ball reached Tsygankov in the definition zone, Dovbyk makes his run behind the defense also using at his advantage the hesitation of the defenders if to drop deep or move forward to try executing the offside trap. This time the chemistry between the two Ukrainians works in term of a direct pass from the winger to the forward.
WHICH PLAYER IS COMING TO ROME
Artem Dovbyk is a true number 9 and he has a set of movements without the ball which allow him to be always able to get unmarked from defenders and to be able to take advantage of the work of his teammates by getting ready once receives the ball in the penalty area.
As this diagram shows, Dovbyk is a forward who is served more in the penalty area rather than in the DEEP passes zone. For this reason the tactical picture of AS Roma should be able to use players in the DEEP passes zone allowing him to cover the depth. Therefore it would be very risky to ask him to be more involved far from the penalty area with the ball cause his bread and butter is moving into the penalty area.
As we have seen dissecting his open play goals, he is able to score by receiving crosses, cut-backs and also through ball, this means that is teammates must be able to cover all the vertical channels of the opponent last third, on the other side his runs towards penalty area can create more spaces in the definition zone that the giallorossi can use to better progressing the ball and creating opportunities from crosses (Angelino is good in crossing), shoot from distance (Lorenzo Pellegrini knows how to score from outside the penalty area) and through ball (Dybala, Soulé and Paredes we are looking at you).
So, Dovbyk can be the right player to definitely enhance the tactical picture that Daniele De Rossi and Florent Ghisolfi are painting in Trigoria. Probably the more interesting project of next Italian Serie A.
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