Dziedzic’s 5.3 chances, one league goal: Madrid wait for the return

5.3 expected goals, one actual goal: Krzysztof Dziedzic’s Spanish First Division season has a gap of 4.3, and the chances keep arriving.

One has gone in: a conversion rate of 3 per cent. His only league goal came on 5 December; ten league games have passed since. The arithmetic is plain, if not especially helpful to the man doing the shooting.

There is at least a useful distinction between a drought and a disappearance. Dziedzic is still getting chances, and his 12 efforts on target suggest the goal is not merely a rumour. Whether the next one comes today is unknowable. The figures do establish that the opportunities have not dried up.

The miss is costing Athletico a reliable return from a striker signed from FC CFR 1907 Cluj on 22 July for £32.1m. He has eight goals in 38 appearances for the club this season, but the league account is just the one. For a side whose last Spanish First Division title came in 2062/63, a forward converting a little more often would be a convenient development.

Dziedzic has a long record of scoring: 156 goals in 467 club games, plus eight in 24 appearances for England. The current numbers are a poor match for that career total, though totals are not obliged to arrive on schedule. He has said little in public that would make this a performance, and those who know him will recognise the value of turning up to work unchanged. The net, for now, has yet to reciprocate.

Athletico’s 2-2 derby draw with Vallecano on 2 March is the latest league context; this is not a shortage of occasions so much as a shortage of finishes. The next one would make the other numbers look less like an audit.