In the Eredivisie, with Heerenveen, they had 45 goals in 66 games, followed by 36 goals in 85 Bundesliga appearances for Wolfsburg. Making Bas Dost a substitute for Islam Slimani and Sporting’s biggest signing ever, it seemed to make sense at the time.

A past season from lion to chest, his purchase was even more justified, with the trophy of the best scorer of Liga NOS, thanks to the 34 goals scored. No matter how much the expectation among leonine supporters, few would be expected from the Dutch in their first season, more goals than those that Slimani, Liedson or Acosta ever made in one season.

But not everything is “roses”. The scorer’s start to the season has been somewhat erased, with only four goals in eight games and even less in the team. In this article I will try to compare the past season with this beginning of the season, in order to try to explain the lower production of “jersey 28”.

A one player system

It is not difficult to understand the type of player Bas Dost is. An area man (or target man for those who want to use the terms of “Football Manager”), which does little work in construction. Not for lack of will – there were several moments in the beginning of last season when we watched Jesus send the forward back to the big area, when he wandered to one of the lines, for example – but because the coach wanted to simply take the maximum advantage of Bas’s best features: aerial play and the ability to finish within area. That created a system that practically played for his striker, and that would ultimately be monetized the best, with the Dutch to score 50% of the goals of the team in the championship.

However, it is unlikely that a team will reach very high levels when it is so dependent on a single player to finish plays, which may also help explain the “lions” failure in 16/17. If the team’s model was not sustainable, maintaining Dost’s numbers was also not expected. The former Wolfsburg scored 40% of the total number of shots he made in the league, something absolutely insane and made him the most effective player in Europe last season, by wide margin. Just by comparison, Messi – definitely one of the best finishers in history – made only 21% of his shots last season. And even if we count only shots fired within the area, the conversion rate rises “only” to 27%. All this to say that, being Dost a finer than average, would always regress in the goals scored this season.