Among the many burning issues for a new Hibs manager is to solve the puzzle that is Dylan Vente.
Signed from Roda JC for £700,000 last summer, the 25-year-old forward arrived with a burgeoning reputation and a commendable goalscoring record. Like the season at large, though, that initial promise and excitement gradually frittered away. Vente enjoyed promising beginnings in a Hibs shirt, but his form fell away amid a litany of wider team issues and, combined with some badly-timed injuries, he never got anywhere close to consistency.
There's clearly a talented player in there; he displayed good technical quality and didn't often fluff his lines when those rare chances did come along. How to get him firing on all cylinders is likely to be a conundrum for whoever follows Nick Montgomery into the dugout.
Here, we look at his overall campaign, the detailed numbers underpinning it, how Vente compares to the rest of the league, and what could help him find better form moving forward.
Season summary
Vente made a fairly promising start to his Hibs career, scoring in the memorable Europa Conference League qualifying win over Luzern at home and three consecutive matches following Montgomery's arrival in September. That period included a run where he netted five goals from five shots on target.
Montgomery said that Vente had arrived from the Netherlands without a pre-season and a little short on fitness, the suggestion being that there was much more to come from him. Injury to Adam Le Fondre in October, however, brought a premature end to what had looked like a promising partnership and Vente was asked to step into the supporting striker role with Martin Boyle often playing through the middle - not ideal for either player, with the Australian internationalist later admitting in not-so-many words that he far preferred hugging the touchline and coming inside than being tasked with leading the line.
It was very much a 'taking one for the team' moment for Vente. He wasn't overly suited to the role, but it seemed that Montgomery felt he was the best option in terms of linking midfield and attack, with Boyle's pace then used to stretch defences. It didn't work particularly well, or often, from an attacking perspective and Vente's most effective contribution in the role was, perhaps, keeping Celtic's Callum McGregor quiet during a goalless draw at Easter Road when he was virtually played as an auxiliary central midfielder.
During this period, we wrote about how the deeper positioning was hindering Vente's ability to get to where he wants to be: in the penalty box. After scoring against Dundee on September 30, he did not register again in the Premiership until December 3. It was a temporary reprieve, however, as he embarked on another barren run that did not end until February 24.
The expectation was that this could resolve fairly quickly if Montgomery welcomed players back from injury, or recruited a natural number ten in January. Emiliano Marcondes was brought in, and considered a statement signing at the time, yet consistent goalscoring form continued to elude Vente even as he moved back into a more advanced area. A troublesome ankle injury did not help, and he missed several matches across March and April.
Vente climbed off the bench to score his final goal of the campaign away at St Johnstone in the first post-split fixture. He finished the season with eight goals and four assists in 36 matches, finding the net, on average, every 401 minutes.
Detailed statistics
Vente's radar from StatsBomb offers a summary of how he has performed in key areas, albeit without the necessary context. Compared to the league average, his xG and shots-per-90 numbers stick out as being low, and symptomatic of how Hibs struggled to supply him throughout the season.
You can see how Vente turns the ball over far less than other Premiership strikers, and this was likely a factor in Montgomery deciding to move him into the supporting role in Le Fondre's absence. However, it often felt as though he was floating on the periphery of matches. According to Sofascore, he averaged around 24 touches per game. This is more than the likes of Bojan Miovski, Kyogo Furuhashi, and Cyriel Dessers, but the lack of opportunities created for Vente has made him seem especially withdrawn from the action around him.
His 0.19xG per 90 puts him among the bottom three Premiership strikers who have played more than 900 minutes this season. At 1.46 shots per 90, he's ahead only of Dundee's Zach Robinson by those same criteria. By contrast, Vente is just outside the top ten for xG per shot - a measure of shot quality - which offers some evidence that, if furnished with the opportunities, he can be a threat.
It must however be acknowledged that Vente was being played out of position for a significant period of the season, and it would be unfair to judge him purely on these raw numbers. His goal against St Johnstone last month was a fine example of where you want him to be; playing on the shoulder, available for passes in behind, or close to the box for wide deliveries.
So many of his goals from Roda came from crosses into the box or passes being slipped into inside channels for him to latch on to. Despite Hibs having some of the Premiership's most exciting wingers, we saw remarkably few of those moments. The 3-0 win over Livingston is the only match that springs to mind where Hibs consistently worked cutbacks from wide areas, and Vente will surely have thought it typical that he was out injured when it happened. When he signed last summer, Hibs posted the below compilation of his best goals for Roda, but we didn't see much of that player in the months that followed.
There are mitigating factors for Vente's low goals return and lack of chances, but the player himself must also bear some responsibility. Even in teams that create fewer chances, some of the very best strikers find ways to carve out opportunities for themselves, which hasn't been the case for Vente this season. Forwards in arguably poorer sides have had better campaigns, and the concern for Hibs is the possibility that Vente is simply not a great fit for the team. Despite having a full season under his belt though, it's too early to make that call, as Vente was far from the only player who seemed to regress as the campaign wore on.
How can he improve?
Adjusting to the Scottish Premiership is not always easy, and the case can be made that the transition proved an especially tricky one as a striker playing in a largely inconsistent side. It's almost a cliche at this point, but it is a physical league and that takes time to adapt to.
Compared to the Eerste Divisie, there are far fewer goals scored in Scotland's top flight. The 13th-placed side in the Dutch second tier scored 17 more goals than Hearts, who comfortably finished third here. Simply put, Vente has moved to a league where goals are much harder to come by, and a difficult first season is, perhaps, a symptom of that.
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As discussed, it hasn't helped that Hibs have almost certainly not played to his strengths. His best form of the season came with Le Fondre playing just off him, and the veteran English forward seemed the perfect foil for Vente. At Roda, during his final two goal-laden seasons he featured as the frontman in a 433, the centre-forward in a 4231 or 4141, or occasionally with a strike-partner in a 352 or 442.
With that in mind, there was hope that the arrival of Marcondes would help make Vente less of an isolated figure, but he and the Bournemouth loanee barely struck up any kind of partnership. Marcondes played as more of a roaming playmaker than the supporting striker role taken up by Le Fondre.
Without knowing which system and style of play the as-yet unknown next manager will want to deploy, it's difficult to say with any certainty how Vente might benefit from a change of coach. What's clear is that he struggled in Montgomery's possession-based system, with Hibs playing against low blocks, and frequently labouring to break them down.
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Being a peripheral figure during matches and going months without scoring cannot be anything other than damaging for a striker's confidence, and Vente has not looked like a player operating with any kind of flow. Forwards are often at their best when everything happens naturally, without too much thought, but Hibs' number nine has often looked like a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The hope will be that a new manager can help lift that weight, and bring out the player Hibs paid handsomely for last summer.
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