Last season, a certain ex-Stoke City striker scored 45% of his club’s league goals. This time around, for a different team, he’s on around 55%.
14 goals in 37 appearances for Deportivo Alavés, followed by six goals in eight for Espanyol, it feels as if Joselu’stalismanic power is only growing stronger. Unbeatable in the air, unerring in the area, rarely has a striker become so important, so quickly, after just 720 minutes wearing the shirt.
Because goals don’t tell the whole story with this goal-scorer. Last season, the six-foot-three striker won 284 aerial duels – that was 41 more than anyone else in Europe, and 138 more than anyone in LaLiga. That included 47 clearances – more than any other striker – along with 10 this season, again, the most of all LaLiga’s forwards.
And, with 228 pressures in the final third, only Iñaki Williams and Enes Ünal pressed harder than the 32-year-old last season. 66 this season places him one behind Valentín Castellanos, in second place.
A player so utterly dominant in the air yet unrelenting in his running, Joselu has become a textbook target-man, and an even better finisher. A goal against Levante last season showed the forward at his unstoppable best, first winning a header to flick the ball out wide to a teammate, and second winning a header in the area to crash it into the top corner. From a hopeful, floated ball, a winner in the 92nd minute.
Against Cádiz last weekend, lurking between the two defenders before ghosting in behind the despairing jump of Victor Chust, Joselu powered it into the ground and into the net. 15 minutes later, he was running in behind, bearing down on goal, and lifting it into the near corner. And the weekend before, he was bringing it down, opening his body, and bending it in perfectly off the post.
And then there are the penalties. Eight of his last 10 converted in LaLiga, two from two in an Espanyol shirt, few are more dependable from 12 yards.
A variety of superb finishes to go with his immaculate sense of timing, already having netted a 98th minute equaliser for Espanyol this season, there can’t be many more underappreciated forwards in Europe. It’s a shame we weren’t able to see him link up with Raúl de Tomás this season, but perhaps Joselu is a striker who does his best work alone.