After becoming something of a fans' favourite with five goals in 15 games during an injury-hit spell in the 2022/2023 season, most Hibernian supporters were glad to see Mykola Kukharevych return on loan to link up once more with David Gray for this Scottish Premiership campaign.
He joined Swansea City on a permanent deal from Troyes last summer but his time in Wales was also plagued by injuries, limiting him to 1 goal in 13 games, although he did feature in several matchday squads without making an appearance from the bench.
At 23 but already in his seventh season as a professional footballer, Kukharevych only has 73 senior club appearances. I highlight this to underline that we are discussing a player with undoubtedly huge talent, but who is still a relative novice in the game.
He will no doubt be striving for an injury-free season containing lots of goals and assists but I’m sure Gray, and Swansea, will be carefully monitoring his game time. With Kieron Bowie sidelined for the next few months and Dwight Gayle arriving as a free agent in the twilight of his career, Kukharevych now has the slightly unenviable task of leading the line for the foreseeable future.
At 6ft 4 inches tall, he would appear to be the archetypal target man but those who have watched him closely know he is a more rounded player willing to press and run in behind, who is also a clinical finisher.
Are Hibs utilising him properly? How does he compare with other strikers in the league? And what are his strengths and areas for development?
I rewatched the game against Motherwell and took a deep dive into his stats and found some interesting results.
A quick glance at Statsbomb makes for interesting reading. Kukharevych is performing in line with the league average when looking at his total number of shots (number of non-penalty shots a player takes), his expected goals, or xG (non-penalty expected goals) and xG /shot (a measure of shot quality looking at the average non-penalty expected goal value per shot a player takes).
Kukharevych has two goals in eight games but it should be more. The chance that led to the penalty against Rangers, the penalty itself - the less said about that the better - and the three big chances in quick succession against Motherwell.
Firstly he drew a double save from Aston Oxborough and from the resulting corner had a header cleared off the line. This chance against Motherwell highlighted a clear change under Gray: get the ball wide and get it into the box as early as possible, which makes sense when you have a player the height of Kukharevych and in theory, have at least an attacking midfielder, a winger and a full-back in and around the penalty box.
As the ball travels wide, Kukharevych is already on the move, aiming for the penalty box, splitting the centre-backs.
For the first of his three chances against Motherwell in the first half, it's another deep cross; this time from the left side and the boot of Jordan Obita and again, Kukharevych attacks the space between the centre-backs.
The stand-out results are Aerial Wins, i.e. the number of aerial duels a player wins; pressures (the number of times a player pressures an opposition player) and pressure regains (the times a player’s team wins the ball back within five seconds of the player pressuring an opponent).
The Rangers game was a great example of Kukharevych being disciplined out of possession, working extremely hard alongside Josh Campbell, trying to stop the ball going into the middle of the pitch and forcing it wide.
However, even in the home game against Motherwell, there were numerous examples of his willingness to work hard for the team, leading to profitable attacks on goal.
Kukharevych doesn’t slack on his defensive duties, either. Consider the following three images from the first half of the Motherwell game.
I wonder if the tactical demand on Kukharevych of being asked to drop deep and muck in, along with his injury record, is why he is averaging around 72 minutes of game time before being substituted at the moment. Until January, I think this will be a likely trend as we need to make sure he is fit and available as often as possible.
Room for improvement?
The big area for improvement is the number of turnovers (how often a player loses the ball via a miscontrol or failed dribble). Kukharevych's hold-up play, like any young striker, has a long way to go but he has shown he can hold the ball up well, link the play, and trouble the opposition centre-backs.
There were plenty of examples of both good and not-so-good hold-up play from the Ukrainian forward against Motherwell. In the first example, he shows good movement to force Liam Gordon back before dropping into receive the pass...
In this next example, it's a similar set-up to the previous situation as he collects the ball from Junior Hoilett with some simple, but effective movement.
Kukharevych has all the attributes to be a successful striker in the league and we've seen flashes of that, both in his previous loan spell and in a handful of games so far this season.
In a team that has been a little all over the place in his first eight games, Kukharevych has made a solid start. I'd imagine Gayle's contribution will mostly be from the bench and even with Martin Boyle returning, who could play alongside him up top in a two-man strikeforce, I imagine Gray will continue with a 4411 / 4231 set-up.
With 12 games to go until January, and even though I alluded to leading the line being an unenviable task, Kukharevych has a real opportunity to firmly establish himself as a Hibs' number nine... or ninety-nine.
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