Colton Swan will join Hibernian next month as the USL Championship Young Player of the Season, with his work at Charleston Battery helping to explain why the club were interested in the 19-year-old.
The standout aspect of his season is the quality of the scoring chances he has been able to find. For a Hibs team that has struggled to take their chances this season, that is particularly relevant.
Swan produced 0.56 non-penalty goals per 90 minutes for Charleston from 0.53 non-penalty expected goals (npxG), and the closeness of those two figures is significant.
His scoring record was broadly supported by the quality of his chances, rather than a run of low-percentage finishes going in.
How he reached that output is more interesting.
Swan averaged 1.98 shots per 90, a fairly modest total for a centre-forward, but the average value of those attempts was 0.27 npxG.
His season was not built on repeatedly shooting on sight of goal. He was getting shots away from positions where there was a genuine likelihood of scoring.
Comparing him with three Hibs forwards from last season, and one from this season, gives those figures greater context and, crucially, a larger body of minutes to work with than the early stages of the current campaign.
Swan played 1,454 league minutes for Charleston, while Martin Boyle accumulated 2,198 Premiership minutes for Hibs, Thibault Klidjé 809, given he spent half a season on loan at Randers in Denmark, and Ante Šuto 496, after arriving during the January transfer window.
There is an obvious limit to the comparison. Swan's percentile rankings are measured against USL Championship strikers and the Hibs players are ranked against forwards in the Scottish Premiership.
It would be misleading to treat those rankings as interchangeable, so the raw per-90 numbers are more instructive. They do, however, make Swan's shot choice stand out.
Of the three Hibs players from last season, Šuto comes closest to Swan for underlying scoring output. He generated 0.55 npxG per 90, fractionally more than Swan's 0.53, and returned 0.73 non-penalty goals per 90.
The obvious asterisk is playing time. Often used as an impact sub last term, Šuto's 496 minutes amount to less than six full matches, whereas Swan maintained his numbers over almost three times as many minutes.
The quality of Swan's shots is also notable even alongside Šuto. The Hibs striker averaged 0.22 npxG per attempt, Klidjé 0.17 and Boyle 0.13. Swan was at 0.27.
At 1.98 shots per 90, he shot less frequently than Šuto at 2.54 and Boyle at 2.29. His 28.12 per cent conversion rate reflects how productive he was once he got into a position to finish.
Klidjé's figures add another layer to the comparison. He recorded 4.34 touches in the opposition penalty area per 90 last season, compared with Swan's 3.71, but generated 0.33 npxG against Swan's 0.53.
Swan was therefore generating considerably greater chance value than the Togolese forward despite being involved slightly less frequently inside the box.
His movement for Charleston regularly put him in favourable positions by the time the final ball arrived.
Whether he can find those positions as consistently in Scotland is one of the questions Hibs and the player will need to answer.
Scottish Premiership defenders will present a different challenge, both tactically and physically, and Swan's work away from the penalty area remains much less developed than his finishing.
He registered 0.81 progressive passes, 0.31 progressive runs and 0.31 shot assists per 90. There were no smart passes or through balls recorded in his Charleston numbers, because he is not that type of player.
Boyle's figures illustrate the gap in that department. He registered 2.13 progressive passes, 1.80 progressive carries and 0.74 shot assists per 90 for Hibs, alongside 0.14 expected assists compared with Swan's 0.09.
It is not a like-for-like judgement. Boyle was performing a different role and had considerably more experience, but his numbers illustrate the various ways in which a forward can influence an attack when scoring opportunities are scarce.
Klidjé also carried the ball more frequently. Swan recorded 0.31 progressive runs and 0.62 successful dribbles per 90, with no accelerations recorded.
There is little in his Charleston data to suggest that his game currently revolves around collecting possession away from goal, beating defenders and creating his own route into the penalty area.
The aerial figures contain a similar distinction. Swan scored 0.31 headed goals per 90, an impressive return which adds another aspect to his penalty-box threat, but won only around a third of his aerial duels. Šuto's aerial success rate for Hibs was 43.33 per cent.
Attacking a cross is a different exercise from receiving a direct pass under pressure from a centre-half. Swan's scoring numbers suggest he can be dangerous in the first situation. The second may require considerably more adaptation in the Premiership.
Development should therefore be an important part of how Hibs handle his arrival.
Swan is 19 and should not be expected to arrive with every aspect of centre-forward play already in place. His time in Charleston suggests that his instinct for where and when to arrive for good chances is already relatively advanced, which is half the battle.
His link play, carrying, creativity and ability to cope with the physical demands of leading an attack have much more scope to improve.
Marink Reedijk's approach to young players is significant here. The Hibs manager has already stated that, ‘if they're good enough, they're old enough,’ while making development an important part of his work.
His record with younger players suggests age alone will not prevent Swan from getting opportunities if his performances and efforts in training merit them.
That makes the distinction between an immediate first-team player and a longer-term prospect less important than it might otherwise appear.
Swan has done enough in the USL Championship to earn the chance to compete for minutes. To reiterate: a return of 0.56 non-penalty goals from 0.53 npxG per 90 across 1,454 minutes carries weight regardless of the difference in divisions, while an average shot quality of 0.27 npxG is especially interesting for a Hibs side that has struggled to consistently turn attacking opportunities into goals.
But expecting him to arrive next month and immediately solve that problem would put a very different level of responsibility on a 19-year-old moving into a new league.
Šuto's smaller sample last season shows that Hibs have already had a forward capable of producing comparable underlying scoring numbers in the Premiership.
Klidjé reached the penalty area more frequently, while Boyle was able to contribute much more extensively to progression and creation.
But both Šuto and Klidjé have both found consistent league minutes and goals harder to come by this season, firstly under David Gray and now Reedijk. Klidjé has even been used off the left at times under the Dutchman. That creates an opportunity for Swan, although not necessarily an immediate vacancy with his name on it.
Nathan Lowe's numbers from this season so far provide a more immediate comparison, albeit across only 469 Premiership minutes.
Lowe has actually been more involved inside the penalty area, averaging 4.22 touches and 2.11 shots per 90 compared with Swan's 3.71 and 1.98 respectively.
The difference is in what those shots have been worth. Lowe has generated 0.36 npxG per 90 at an average of 0.17 per attempt, while Swan produced 0.53 npxG with an average shot value of 0.27 for Charleston.
Swan's 0.56 non-penalty goals per 90 also sits well above Lowe's 0.19, although comparisons between different competitions require caution.
Lowe's minutes are another relatively small sample and his broader contribution has been more pronounced, including significantly more shot assists and ball progression.
For Hibs, the interest in Swan is therefore less about adding another striker who can get into the box than potentially adding one whose movement has consistently ended with better scoring opportunities.
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His first few months at Easter Road may tell Hibs as much about what he can do between chances as what happens when one falls his way.
If Swan continues getting into the positions he found so regularly for Charleston, Reedijk has shown little reason to believe his age would count against him.
There is also considerable development still available in other areas of his game, and Hibs will have to decide how quickly he can be exposed to the demands of regular Premiership football.
What Swan did in Charleston offers good reason for interest rather than a guarantee of what comes next. He arrives with a clearly defined penalty-box potency at an age when much of his game remains open to improvement.
How readily that scoring profile carries into Scottish football, and how quickly Reedijk can develop the areas around it, should also inform what Hibs decide they still need from their January transfer business.
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