Ben Brereton Diaz has had a standout season with Blackburn Rovers.

The Chile international bagged 22 goals for Tony Mowbray’s side as they fell just short of making the Championship play-offs.

An unfortunate injury issue in the second half of the season halted Brereton Diaz’s progress and hindered Rovers’ promotion charge.

Ultimately, Blackburn finished 8th in the table, six points adrift of the top six places.

With Mowbray set to leave at the end of the season when his contract expires, there will be plenty of interest surrounding Blackburn’s top players.

In particular, Brereton Diaz has caught the interest of Premier League sides, and with his contract also expiring in June he could be highly likely to depart Ewood Park in the next few months.

While Blackburn hold a clause to extend his contract by an extra 12 months, that may not be enough to keep him at the club.

Here, we will take a look at some of the stats behind why the striker is in such high demand this transfer window…

His 22-goal tally will catch the eye, but there is more to his game than simply getting on the end of chances.

Courtesy of Fbref, we can see that Brereton Diaz’s goals per minutes tally of 0.65 equals to the third highest in the Championship, only behind Matt Godden (0.69) and Aleksander Mitrovic (1.01).

The Chile international ranked fourth in the entire division for the number of shots on target he achieved per 90, totaling at 1.44 per game.

That is an impressive figure, and being able to guarantee more than a shot on target per game makes him a dangerous threat against each opponent and will always give him a chance at scoring.

Only Mitrovic, Godden and Viktor Gyokeres managed a higher number in the league through the entire season.

 

 

The striker didn’t rank as highly when it came to converting those shots on targets to goals, where he has a rate of a goal 37 per cent of the time he has a shot on goal.

However, that can be explained by his high volume of shots compared to others who converted from very few.

In isolation, that is actually quite a good conversion rate, which is why he rates so highly in the goals per minutes category.

These stats all combine to paint a picture of a dangerous striker who makes the most of the positions he finds himself in.

The 23-year old looks ready to make the step up to the Premier League, if the move does come this summer.