What does Bony offer to City?

Top 5 goal scorers across top six leagues since 2012-13: Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Graziano Pellè, Zlatan Ibrahimovic & Wilfried Bony.

Top scorer in Premier League in 2014: Wilfried Bony.

Impressive!!!

What sort of a mindset Bony has? What type of striker is Bony? What can we expect of Bony?

At the onset, I would urge you to read this article on Bony "Wilfried Bony a dedicated heavyweight signing" which gives an excellent insight on Bony & his mindset.

Now, let’s take a look at radars* of Bony & Edin Dzeko, the player he is going to compete with for a spot in XI (assuming we play 2 ST formation & Kun is one of them).

These are atypical radar’s of#9 - less creativity but concentrated shooting & goal related numbers. Bony produced inferior numbers to Dzeko but two factors to account are, Bony played for a lesser influential team of Swansea & he is 3 years younger to Dzeko.

City is not a selling team but if it was and if chemistry between Bony & City player’s worked fine, Bony would be an ideal long term replacement allowing City to encash on Dzeko before his value reduces substantially.

Fine, Bony is 3 years younger but will he reach Dzeko’s goal tally? There are no guarantees. But Bony’s peak years should be from 2015 to 2019 & there’s very good chance he can reach Dzeko’   lofty goals tally. In fact, in 2014-15, he is already producing shot volume & shooting %, key drivers behind goals, which are similar to Dzeko’ 2013-14 (Dzeko’ best season in City shirt).

Has Bony progressed year on year?

Bony of 2013-14 Vs Bony of 2014-15:

NPG, Assists, Shot volume, SOT, Shooting%, Conversion, Shots required/goal, KP – ALL metrics show improvement.

Bony’s NPG shows an increase from 0.44 to 0.55. Goals are primarily dependent on two factors: Shot volume & Conversion rate. Ideally, you would like a player to improve both factors. So, how much of Bony’s goal upside (0.44 to 0.55) is due to increase in shot volume & how much due to better conversion rate (accuracy, angles, position etc)?

By keeping one variable constant, we can find the contribution of another. Keeping Bony’s conversion rate (11.20%) constant, gives a NPG of 0.52 i.e we have identified contribution of shot volume to his increased NPG i.e. increase from 0.44 to 0.52 is due to increase in shot volume. And, increase from 0.52 to 0.55 is due to increase in conversion rate.

Weighted average: Increase in NPG [4.60 (-) 3.93 = 0.67) came from 72% increase in shot volume & 28% due to better conversion.

Though I don’t have figures for other strikers to compare with, it’s admirable that Bony has increased his shot volume but also increased his conversion rate.

From this stage of his career, should Bony succeed in small but gradual improvement of conversion rates, it would take him very far in his career & City too.

Bony OR Dzeko?

That’s a tough one to answer & fans are split in middle. My only concern is: Pellgrini is a huge fan of Dzeko. Last season, Pellegrini was reluctant to drop Dzeko and did so only because of Dzeko’ stretched poor form & Negredo doing well in substitute appearances. Bony is not a player whose big name will put pressure on Pellegrini to use him.

Bony-Aguero partnership:

Aguero takes 6.3 shots, while Bony himself is a shot machine at 4.6 & both are at optimum level of shot making across leagues (as per Ted’s radar’s). So how does City use two players who are fond of taking shots? Do they cannibalize each other’s shots? Haven’t we already seen how Aguero-Dzeko partnership just doesn’t click? Bony is a Fox in Box while Aguero is a dynamic & a complete forward. Bony’s strengths are in holding up the ball & layoffs to bring others into play – and these are the skills which are exactly suited for successful Aguero partnership, on paper for time being. And it wouldn’t be naïve to think that this was one of key reasons to buy him. Now, its upto Pellegrini to translate this to pitch & make Aguero-Bony partnership click, to ensure that Bony & Aguero complement each other, rather than contradict each other. Because if it happens, Aguero will eventually get bucket loads of goals and Bony’s loss of some shots & goals, if any, will be more than compensated.

*Radar is a concept produced & developed by Ted Knuston (@mixedknuts). We thank him for permitting us to display radar plots on this post.

Data collected from http://objective-football.blogspot.in/ & WhoScored.com