Who Is Artem Dovbyk?
Even though they eventually had to hit the brakes a little bit in their chase for the La Liga title, Girona are still the revelation of 2023/24.
Going into the business end of the campaign, Real Madrid and Barcelona have overtaken the challengers-to-be, but their efforts may still see them clinch a European spot heading into the upcoming season.
And while that has certainly been a collective endeavour, Girona have been helped by brilliant individuals such as Artem Dovbyk.
The 26-year-old striker has been topping the charts in the Spanish top flight and bringing points to the table since the beginning of 2023/24.
But what kind of a player is he? This tactical analysis will give you a full scout report on the Ukrainian, bringing you his strengths and weaknesses and providing an analysis of how he fits Girona’s tactics.
Artem Dovbyk Style Of Play
Artem Dovbyk is a 26-year-old striker playing for Girona in La Liga.
He joined the Catalan club in the summer of 2023 from SK Dnipro for a fee of €7.75m, representing another bargain deal for one of the most exciting teams of the current campaign.
According to Wyscout, Dovbyk is a towering presence on the pitch, standing at 6ft 2in (189cm) and weighing 88kg.
The Ukrainian plays as a target man and outlet in Girona’s tactics and has a great skill set, which benefits a proper poacher of the game.
In the next image, you can see a statistical analysis of his player profile, including attacking, defensive, and passing capabilities.
Immediately, we can see Dovbyk has clear preferences and a clear style of play; his goal contributions are impressively in the high 80s percentile ranking and he is extremely effective at winning aerial duels.
This, combined with a high volume of touches in the opposition’s penalty area, already hints at what kind of a striker we’re dealing with.
Dovbyk is not an elite creator nor an elite distributor of the ball; in Michel’s tactics, the 26-year-old is most effective and most involved inside the box.
That said, his profile is not limited to just movement inside the area; indeed, Dovbyk’s hold-up play and lay-off game are prominent aspects of Girona’s overall tactics, as he can be used as a press-breaker and to slow down play when needed.
Artem Dovbyk Touch Map and Heat Map
His heatmap and touchmap, which you can see in the second image, will tell us more about his tendencies.
We can see his actions are most intense inside the penalty area, and that’s where he tallies the most touches compared to the rest of the pitch.
However, at the same time, his influence extends deeper, but, as mentioned earlier in the scout report, this is largely for lay-off and hold-off duty.
It does seem, though, that even though he’s not a volume passer, dribbler, or elite creator, Dovbyk is still above average when deploying dangerous passes and is fairly accurate in his overall distribution.
All of that makes for an attractive profile, and in the following sections of the tactical analysis, we’ll explore his most important traits in more detail.
Artem Dovbyk Attacking phase tactical analysis
Girona are one of La Liga’s most lethal teams this season.
At the moment of writing, Michel’s men have scored 63 goals (2nd best), four fewer than Real Madrid and one more than Barcelona, from 56.86 expected goals (3rd best), slightly overperforming on the metric.
Quite interestingly and impressively, Dovbyk is at the heart of it all; the Ukrainian striker has so far registered 21 goal contributions (1st in La Liga) with 17 goals (1st in La Liga) from 17.06 xG, which is also the highest expected value in the Spanish top flight.
Quite clearly, we’re talking about a lethal striker who gets into a lot of great chances and scores them accordingly.
Our next visual shows us all of his shots this season and the accumulated expected goals.
Artem Dovbyk Shot Map
Dovbyk has scored 13 non-penalty goals from 14.02 xG and 58 shots, good enough for a fairly impressive 0.24 xG per shot.
Penalties are excluded from this equation, but from the four he has taken so far, the 26-year-old has scored all of them, further solidifying his proficiency in front of goal and great ball-striking technique.
Interestingly, Dovbyk doesn’t attempt a lot of shots per 90, only 2.54, but is relatively accurate in front of goal, helped by Girona’s tactics putting him into good positions to score from, as can also be seen from the previous shot map.
Game state matters a lot, too; Dovbyk excels when there is space to be exploited through set pieces or simply finding openings from open-play distribution.
One of his key traits is movement, and due to his physicality, he can outrun and outmuscle most defenders, especially when in full motion.
He’s very difficult to stop once he gets going with his big strides, using hands and changes of direction to manipulate the markers.
As we can see in this image, one of his trademark moves is the diagonal and curved, or even parallel run; Dovbyk will initially be positioned between the centre-backs, pinning them higher up the pitch and creating space between the lines.
However, as soon as Girona recycle the ball wide or the ball is with some of the critical distributors from the deep, such as Eric Garcia, the striker will start a run across the centre-back and into the space behind, as shown in the images.
The potency of these parallel or curved runs is what makes him so effective; Dovbyk will generally take a step backwards before exploding into space, sometimes even running parallel to the backline and then curving across the defender once he gets close to his top speed.
This gives him dynamic superiority in a foot race, even though he starts the run in a deeper position than his marker.
The striker is 9th in total offsides this season, suggesting he’s good at avoiding the traps set by the defensive line.
Still, as much as these runs get him into good positions, it’s the intelligence behind them that gets the job done.
Notice in this sequence how many times he changes direction to dismark himself and get into a poaching position.
The goal seems like a simple tap-in, but the build-up is incredible; Dovbyk starts deep and needs to get himself into the best possible situation to score from a 2v3 scenario.
He changes direction twice and then even steps backwards inside the box to avoid offside before exploding forward and getting at the end of a pass for a tap-in.
This is a simple finish following an incredible sequence.
Girona, of course, create these game states and artificial transitions so they get the best out of Dovbyk.
They average 57.3% possession but are quick to explode forward, especially since they have the Ukrainian leading their frontline.
And while they are the team with the fifth-most crosses in La Liga this season (and fourth in overall accuracy), they come in second when it comes to crosses into the six-yard box.
And this is where Dovbyk dominates.
We saw in the earlier graphic that most of his goals come from positions with high xG values and can often be simple goals that result from intelligent positioning and movement.
Interestingly, with Girona’s six-yard-box crosses being a potent weapon, you’d expect a towering striker to score loads of headers.
But while he comes in fourth in headed shots, he’s not in the top 30 in La Liga in aerial duels or success in aerials.
His jumping power and timing are indeed good; he can outjump most defenders and get to the end of crosses quite well.
However, due to his excellent movement and ability to create separation beforehand, he often doesn’t have to engage in direct 1v1 aerial duels inside the penalty area at all.
Instead, he will create space for himself by being smart, which means his finishes are often simple.
The way he does this can range from that intelligent movement we keep mentioning in this tactical analysis to just bullying defenders inside the area with his physicality.
In this sequence, we can see Dovbyk ramming into the defender to create a separation.
Then, once he loses the marker, he gets into a perfect position to get at the end of a deflection and eventually scores the goal.
Again, this makes an impression of a simple and even lucky strike, but when we look into it in more detail, we can see Dovbyk creates his own luck through intelligent build-up to the goals.
And speaking of build-up, our scout report will now focus on that specific aspect of his player profile.
Artem Dovbyk Build-up phase tactical analysis
Dovbyk is certainly not the type of striker who spends a lot of time on the ball, but he has his use in Girona’s build-up tactics.
While not boasting perfect technique, control or creation, the Ukrainian is a great outlet and a tool to either slow down or speed up the play in the final third of the pitch.
Before we delve into game situations, let’s look at his pass map for more context.
The first thing we notice in the graph is the sheer volume; as mentioned previously in this tactical analysis, Dovbyk is not a volume passer nor does Michel force him to be more than he is in the first place.
The map tells us most of his passes are backwards passes in hold-up, back-to-goal situations and simple lay-offs to either side once he inevitably drops deeper to assist the build-up.
And while he will drop deeper quite often, his sometimes heavy touch and difficulty in controlling bounce passes means he needs to be given a clear target and a simple passing option for the execution to be of the right quality.
We can see such an example in the next image.
One thing to note here is that Dovbyk also accelerates extremely fast from a standstill position.
In this sequence, his starting position is not closer to the ball than his marker, but he still gets to it first and manages to lay the ball off to his teammate.
Again, the pass itself is pretty straightforward, and Dovbyk can execute these consistently as long as the conditions are right.
That said, he is an effective press-breaker, too; Girona often use him as a target man because he manipulates his frame skillfully to control the defender once he backs into him.
This can buy time for teammates to join the attack or open himself to exploit different angles to access runners on either side of him.
Similarly, he can use his head, chest or feet in these situations to progress play.
In this latest image, we can see four different situations and four different ways for Dovbyk to engage in hold-up play or progression of the ball.
As we’ve suggested at the beginning of this tactical analysis, the 26-year-old is not an elite technician, nor is he an elite distributor, but he knows his limits, and Girona’s tactics play around them quite well.
At worst, he loses balls by not controlling the pass properly, but at best, he holds off the defenders and continues the attack, often almost seamlessly.
It all depends on how well he’s set up in the process.
When it comes to pure progression, it’s not that Dovbyk can’t do it; he’s very much involved in that process every week.
However, it’s not a prominent strength of his, nor does he pretend it is.
If he’s in a situation where he needs to deploy a short progressive pass, he will do it.
But if he’s expected to progress play from a deeper area significantly, he is likely going to fail.
A similar thing happens with his dribbles and carries, both of which we can see in the next image.
Artem Dovbyk Ball Progression
Interestingly enough, since Dovbyk has the fifth-most touches in the penalty area (fourth-most per 90) in La Liga, he also attempts dribbles inside the box.
But as we can see from the data, he is not often successful in those attempts.
What he does better is carry the ball for short distances just outside the area and go into it.
If the technical exertion is not too big, he’ll handle the responsibility well.
The same goes for shot assists.
This season, he’s recorded four assists from three xA at the moment of writing, and three of those have come from inside the area.
Again, these are not complex sequences or otherworldly passes, but saying Dovbyk is poor on the ball would also not do his profile enough justice.
The key to his and Girona’s success lies in how Michel’s tactics play around the Ukrainian striker’s limitations.
In the right environment and the right game state, his profile is always a net positive for the Catalan club.
Conclusion
Artem Dovbyk is not the most modern striker on the planet, but his clear strengths fit Girona’s tactics almost perfectly; he’s deadly, fast, strong, has good ball-striking and decent link-up play.
This makes him more of an Erling Haaland than Harry Kane, for example, but considering Michel’s style of play, that is exactly what he’s supposed to be.
Girona have fallen off ever so slightly since their unbelievable start to the season, but they are still on course for a historic La Liga finish.
If they are to continue staying among the elite teams in Spain, they will need Dovbyk to continue doing what he does best.
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