Does Bologna Have Serie A's Next Big Striker in Thijs Dallinga?

Today, I want to talk about Thijs Dallinga. The reason is pretty simple: Vincenzo Italiano is one of the best managers in Serie A, in my opinion, and Bologna was the sensation of the tournament last year. So this year, Bologna will still be one of the teams I’ll watch and follow with interest.

In this context not only will Dallinga be asked to take the place of Joshua Zirkzee, the fellow Dutchman who was the best forward in Serie A (bar Thuram and Lautaro, in my opinion), but it’s also worth noting that Italiano didn’t successfully use any of the strikers he had at his disposal at Fiorentina once Vlahovic transferred to Fiorentina’s arch-nemesis, Juventus. To give a quick overview of what I’m talking about - the numbers are all comps from FBREF:

• Dušan Vlahovic 20/21: 40 games , 21 goals, 18.5 xG, 3 assists

• Dušan Vlahovic 21/22: 24 games, 20 goals, 12.9 xG, 2 assists

• Arthur Cabral 21/22: 16 games , 2 goals, 4.2 xG, 2 assists

• Krzysztof Piątek 21/22: 18 games, 6 goals, 3.6 xG, 0 assists

• Arthur Cabral 22/23: 46 games, 16 goals, 12.4 xG, 1 assist

• Luka Jovic 22/23: 48 games, 13 goals, 14.8 xG, 3 assists

• Andrea Bellotti 23/24: 24 games, 4 goals, 6.2 xG, 0 assists

• Lucas Beltrán 23/24: 49 games, 10 goals, 5.4 xG, 2 assists

• M'Bala Nzola 23/24: 45 games, 7 goals, 7.2 xG, 4 assists

The numbers were not terrible per se, especially in 22/23, but Vlahovic was on another level under Italiano, and none of the other players seemed dominant or comfortable playing in Italiano’s system. This raises questions about Italiano’s ability to adapt his game and make the strikers perform effectively.

Dallinga, who will also have to battle for the starting place with Jens Odgaard and Santiago Castro, is called to answer important questions: Can he replace Zirkzee? Can he flourish under Italiano? Can he be the clear starter in the role?

In this gallery, we can see the shot maps created with the data at my disposal - which doesn’t include the Conference League nor the Coppa Italia - of some of the players I’ve compared Dallinga against. You can see these are all not really healthy shot maps. Only Vlahovic’s is really convincing because there are a lot of shots, like with Zirkzee, but they are almost all along the length of the 6-yard box, and my xG model gives them good value. Jovic and Cabral do not have many shots, and not many with good values. This is probably because Italiano progressively relied more on crosses to find a way to shoot against low blocks. However, they’re at least central and within a distance of less than 11 meters on average.

But what’s about Dallinga?

Here you can see Dallinga's first season in France. His shot map shows some good shot placement with good values, but also big empty spaces the more he distances himself from the 6-yard box.

But last season’s shot map, oh man. I like it. A huge amount of shots, with very few not along the length of the 6-yard box, and a large number of high-quality chances in front of the goal. Look at all those big x's between the goals that were not converted. I’d also like to highlight that his 0.15 xG per shot in 23/24 is lower only than Vlahovic’s in 20/21. Dallinga probably had the time to adjust himself to Ligue 1 football, and playing for Toulouse, a notoriously data-driven team, could have significantly impacted his decision-making and his teammates’, who often created tap-ins for him. Evidently there are some reasons to be optimistic about his performance in Serie A.

Ligue 1 is pretty athletic; it’s no coincidence that many Premier League sides buy from there, and many players from France do well in England. I think Dallinga could be ready to do well in Italy too. From 20/21, the strikers who have made the Ligue 1 to Serie A transition are: Milik, Vitinha, Pellegri, maybe Keita Baldé (if you consider him a striker), and Osimhen. Milik and Pellegri are clearly two players that are injury-prone and have done Italy - France - Italy without great success, so meh. Vitinha and Keita had different problems that didn’t help their game. Osimhen is the only clear success here, but he too had two seasons plagued with injuries and bad luck before winning the Capocannoniere award and the league. He arrived in Italy when he was 21, while Dallinga is 23 at the moment. Osimhen had only played a complete season of Ligue 1 football after a bad experience in Germany and a fairly good season in Belgium, so I can see some similarities in their paths and think that Dallinga arrives in Italy a bit more refined in his game and experienced after two seasons of Ligue 1.

Overall the record in the last couple of transfers is mixed, but Dallinga has some good signals, making him a good gamble at the moment.

Compared again with the players we named before and the first choice of Bologna for post-Zirkzee (Pavlidis), at the moment Dallinga is the striker with the most upside in his scoring ability, here represented by the bars. While his lower side is on par with scoring as expected, clearly having more shots reduces the confidence interval and gives a more accurate idea of shooting ability - as with Vlahovic and Pavlidis. Nonetheless, Pavlidis did not play in a top 5 league and is not going to soon, while all the others have at some point or are actually doing it. I also have to say that this data doesn’t include the domestic cups nor the Eerste Divisie where Dallinga played with Excelsior before going to Toulouse.

Data seem to say Dallinga is a good pick for Bologna and probably indicates that Bologna is big on data, willing to take risks and develop players to replicate the Atalanta model in which Sartori worked for a long time. I’m pretty excited to see what Dallinga can do at Bologna, and I personally think he will continue to do well unless Italiano finishes again in that loop where his team cannot play against park-the-bus type of low block, where anyway Dallinga could use his size and heading to score.

Can’t wait to see Serie A start.

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