There is a chapter in Monchi’s book about integrating new signings, particularly those from abroad and how the unforeseen can determine whether a player settles and performs or not.
He talks about Hiroshi Kiyotake, a €6.5m signing from Hannover, who instantly became a first-team player at Sevilla only for a death in the family to prompt him to ask for a move back to Japan in January this year.
Next there’s the story about Sebastian Battaglia, a player Monchi signed off on buying for Sevilla only for the Rojiblancos to get beaten to the punch by Villarreal. Monchi thought of him as one of the best midfielders in South America. But Battaglia’s wife didn’t much like Spain and within six months they were back in Argentina.
Transfers like these often go down as flops, when in truth the players’ talent needn’t be in question. Life has a tendency to get in the way and disrupt footballers just as it can in every profession.
In between reading these anecdotes I watched Fiorentina play Milan at the Artemio Franchi. Not for the first time this season Jordan Veretout impressed in midfield for the Viola.
At the end of the first half, he hit the kind of pass very few midfielders have in their locker, dropping the ball in behind the Milan full-back for Gil Dias at the far post. If Gigio Donnarumma hadn’t been having one of those days when the Buffon comparisons are on the money, it would have been a certain goal.
Afterwards, Fiorentina coach Stefano Pioli was asked which of the club’s 15 new signings had surprised him the most over the course of the first half of the season. “Veretout,” he said. “He’s a complete midfielder and still has room for improvement.”
Comparisons have been drawn with Radja Nainggolan, which at this juncture still seem a little overblown. “He’s a fantastic tackler,” Pioli continued, “but his movement can be better. Jordan has great ability and he’s an exception." How so exactly, Pioli elaborated thus: "It’s easy for foreign players to initially find our league hard work but Jordan has done well from the start.”
Pioli’s comments may come as a surprise to Aston Villa fans. Much was expected of Veretout when he moved from Nantes to Villa Park in an £8m deal three and a half years ago. He was an Under-20 World Cup winner with France, starting in midfield alongside Paul Pogba and Geoffrey Kondogbia. Performances in that tournament were backed up in Ligue 1 the following season as Veretout participated in 42% of Nantes’ goals. But in the end it didn’t work out for him in Birmingham.
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Did it make Veretout a bad player? Of course not. The same could be said for Florian Thauvin, another member of that Under-20 World Cup winning side who has since scored 23 goals and set up another 15 over the last 18 months in Ligue 1 after making the switch from Newcastle to Marseille. Maybe moves to the Premier League came too soon for the pair of them. Nor did it help that they joined two dysfunctional clubs who deserved to be relegated at the end of the season.
Extenuating circumstances in Veretout’s case are not lacking. As with Thauvin, there was a language barrier to overcome, which was made easier once Remi Gardi replaced Tim Sherwood. However, Garde didn’t see out the season either. It was a bad environment, hardly conducive to new recruits finding their feet and thriving. Just look at another of Villa’s signings that season: fellow Frenchman Jordan Amavi who has been called up to the France squad since following Thauvin to Marseille.
The situation did little to help Veretout prepare for the Premier League. While his impression of football in England as “instinctive” is broadly shared by foreign players, it also maybe hints at the absence of any detailed tactical instruction at Villa, particularly in those early months. Veretout never felt tactics were “central” to the game in England. It contrasts a lot with what he has found in Italy. “I like Pioli,” he told La Gazzetta dello Sport, “he sets us new challenges every week. The mister helps me study the opponents also thanks to video analysis which I appreciate a great deal.”
As with Kiyotake and Battaglia in Spain, other off-the-field matters played a role in making it difficult for Veretout to focus exclusively on his football and give the best of himself at Villa Park. Shortly before agreeing the move, Veretout had become a dad for the first time the move came at an awkward time for him and his wife Sabrina. Living out of a suitcase in a hotel with a newborn baby is hardly ideal and Veretout apparently wasn’t getting a lot of sleep. It affected his performances in training. Compartmentalising problems like these and “leaving them at home” is easier said than done.
Watching Veretout now, you can’t say Villa’s recruitment team made a mistake in their talent identification. After all, he’s widely considered the best signing Fiorentina made last summer - more so than Giovanni Simeone, although that's in part down to the expectation differential. The pedigree was always there with him.
Reflecting on the Kiyotake and Battaglia affairs, Monchi draws the following conclusion: they were the right players, it was just the wrong time for them. The same applies with Veretout who, though realistic given the competition for places in the France squad, is doing everything to put himself in Didier Deschamps’ mind ahead of the friendlies against Colombia and Russia in March.
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