Editors Blog: The Stats Surrounding Oriol Riera

Oriol Riera only signed last summer for Osasuna signing from Segunda team Alcorcon, in his two years at Alcorcon he managed to score 24 goals in 73 games, that is just shy of one goal in three games. Not a bad return for a striker and that rate continued last season, the striker managing to score 13 goals in his 37 appearances for Osasuna. Riera played just over 3000 minutes of football, so for every 231 minutes played he got a goal!

One thing then is already starting to come though here, Wigan Athletic have bagged themselves a striker who on his form over the past three seasons is hitting the target once every three games. Now after last season I think we would all take that. Yet you can get even more excited about the player if you look just how well he did comparing him with the rest of the league.

At the end of the 2013/14 season Riera finished joint 16th top goalscorer alongside David Villa, the Atletico Madrid player did play one less game that Riera did. Finishing two goals outside of the top ten strikers in La Liga last season, with the like of Gareth Bale and Kevin Gamerio filling the last two spots inside the top ten with 15 goals.

So not a bad return for a striker who had been playing outside of the top league for most of his career. The striker is defiantly closing in on his peak.

The other very interesting stat appearing is that only one of Riera's goals came from outside the box. The striker is very much a poacher as you see when you watch the youtube clips of his goals. The player has that knack of being in the right place of the right time to get the ball into the back of the net whether that be with either foot or his head.

Riera's achievements in front of goal are compounded even more when you take into account where Osasuna finished last season. They unfortunately fell foul to relegation and finished in the last of the three relegation spots picking up 39 points. They only managed a mere 32 goals last season, and with Riera getting 13 of them, he nearly managed to score half of them.

This lad is defiantly a player with the goal-scoring touch and someone who has the ability to put away the chances that a team creates for him, no matter where they are going to end up in the league. Hopefully the striker will be able to hit the ground running here at Wigan and will be able to inspire the team to success, if he does take time to adapt we have to be patient and make sure to give him the chance to grow into English football.

Just to finish off here is a look at some of his goals from last season.