Much has been written this season about Manchester City's attacking play ever since they opened the season in swashbuckling style, sweeping all before them in a blistering start to the 2011/12 season. Even allowing for a cooling off away from home of late, City have still hit a very impressive 72 goals (two shy of league leading Manchester United) through 30 games - including 44 goals at The Etihad Stadium.
The focus throughout the season has invariably been on their strikers, whether it is lauding the goalscoring exploits of the trio of Sergio Aguero, Mario Balotelli and Edin Dzeko or debating the merits (and morals) of re-introducing Carlos Tevez into the side.
There is another striker on City's books though who has been quietly creating a buzz of his own as the season has progressed: John Guidetti. The 19 year-old Swede is currently spending the season at Feyenoord where he has carved out a burgeoning reputation as a player with tremendous potential in addition to making himself a firm fan favourite in Rotterdam.
In profiling all players who have scored ten goals or more this season to date in the Dutch Eredivisie we can see how impressive Guidetti's season has been, courtesy of data provided by Infostrada Sports:
Whilst acknowledging the fact that Guidetti has returned an impressive goalscoring record this season, his ratio of shots on target highlights that he possess a clinical edge to his game too. Looking further into his shot numbers, we can see that Guidetti gets a high ratio of his shots on target (shot efficiency):
Guidetti too fares well in terms of conversion (shot effectivity), scoring on some 20.65% of his shots on goal and when scoring in games for Feyenoord they are unbeaten so far this season; winning nine and drawing two when Guidetti finds the net.
Further evidence of an eye for goal is his record on penalties, scoring all seven of his attempts this season and he has hit three hat-tricks and a pair of braces in his tally of 19 goals. Impressively, his hat-tricks came in three successive home matches earlier this year and he was only the second player in the competition's history to do this. The first, Cees Groot, did it twice with his second coming 49 years ago. Guidetti was also just 19 years and 303 days old when he scored his third Eredivisie hat-trick with only Wim Kieft, Marco van Basten and Johan Cruijff have scored three hat-tricks in the competition at a younger age than this.
There was much speculation about his future last summer when his contract at City expired and it looked as though he was heading out of the door. However - and despite reports of an agreement being made with Twente - Guidetti inked a new three-year deal in Manchester (with suggestions that Roberto Mancini played a large part in keeping him at the club).
His scoring record this season though has attracted plenty of interest in Guidetti, with the likes of Bayern Munich reportedly linked with him. Despite an obvious wish to keep Guidetti beyond this season, Feyenoord have admitted defeat with regards their hopes of re-signing him but where does his future lie?
Buoyed by his success, Guidetti will be looking to build on this season and has stated his desire for regular football, but with the return of Tevez to the fold City have an obvious logjam at the striking positions. However, with the futures of all City's strikers bar Aguero far from secure, Guidetti may well get his chance next season. At the very least a loan to a fellow Premier League club in 2012/13 looks likely and despite the step up in terms of competition from the Eredivisie the figures this season point to Guidetti having every opportunity to make that progression.