Four goals, 7.6 expected: can Volpe find the net again?
Luigi Volpe has 62 shots and only four Italian Serie A goals for Juventus, but the chances have not stopped arriving.
7.6 expected goals, four actual ones: Luigi Volpe’s Italian Serie A season is short by 3.6, and the arithmetic has now had three games to grow stale. His last league goal came on 18 February.
The 33-year-old left winger has played 25 league games and taken 62 shots, with 29 on target. Six per cent have gone in. That is not a shortage of attempts; it is the gap between opportunity and payment, and Juventus are the ones covering the bill.
There is at least a reason not to file the chances under missing. They keep coming. It is, however, the summary of this league season so far.
Volpe is not given to changing his manner from week to week. “The next one is still there,” is the sort of answer his employers might expect; there is no need to make the wait sound grander than it is. His unhappiness is no secret, but nor is the simple fact that chances are still reaching him.
It is that 29 shots on target have produced four league goals, and the next chance has yet to become the fifth. Four is the figure; 7.6 is the better one.