by AntMcfc » Wed Nov 05, 2014 3:30 pm
Jack of all trades, master of none: Manchester City still unsure of best role for versatile Jovetic
By Paolo Bandini
When Stevan Jovetic left Fiorentina to join Manchester City in the summer of 2013, it was to pursue a single-minded goal. “I need to prove myself at a top club,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport. “Fiorentina gave me the chance to play in Europe, but now I want to win in Europe.”
Who could begrudge him such ambition? Four years had passed since he announced himself with a brilliant Champions League brace against Liverpool, his goals helping propel Fiorentina to the top of their group. Although the Viola were subsequently eliminated by Bayern Munich in the last 16, Jovetic scored twice against the Germans as well.
In total he struck five times in six Champions League appearances during that 2009-10 campaign. Not bad for a player who had been 19 years old when the season began. Even better for one who was not an out-and-out striker, lining up most often as a No. 10 or left winger in Cesare Prandelli’s 4-2-3-1. It was not until later, under Sinisa Mihajlovic, that we learned he could be effective leading the line.
Such versatility was among the assets that drew Manuel Pellegrini to Jovetic, a player who could be deployed in different ways to complement the talents of Sergio Aguero, Alvaro Negredo and Edin Dzeko. The Montenegrin boasts the raw speed to take on a full-back and the intelligence to link play, but also a deceptive physicality which allows him to hold his own against central defenders.
Or at least, he certainly used to. It is hard to know precisely what qualities Jovetic possesses these days, because we have seen him so rarely.
The term ‘Playstation player’ has entered into the footballing lexicon as a form of praise, ever since Arsène Wenger protested that Lionel Messi’s moves were like something out of a video game. But Jovetic, a man who famously celebrated one Fiorentina strike by pretending to sit down to a game of Fifa, fits the bill only in the most literal sense. If City fans have seen him dominate any opponent over the last 16 months, it was probably whilst playing on their consoles.
In 16 months with the Premier League club, he has made a total of 28 appearances – just 12 of those as a starter. He has been sidelined on eight separate occasions by illness or injury.
Jovetic missed the entire 2010-11 season at Fiorentina with torn cruciate ligaments, but his troubles in Manchester have not revolved around his knee. He has a different theory regarding their origins. “Maybe because I didn’t make my preparation with the team [after joining in 2013], I came when they started to play [pre-season] games and I was training alone,” he told The Guardian. “I was always a step, two steps behind.”
The hope is that such troubles are finally behind him. Jovetic has already made as many starts in this campaign as in the last one. The problem for Pellegrini is working out how to use him. Against Manchester United on Sunday he lined up as a second striker behind Aguero, but never looked entirely certain of his duties. Tactics writer Michael Cox noted that the pair had combined just twice in 71 minutes.
Versatility can sometimes be a hindrance, and the lack of one natural role might make Jovetic seem like more hassle than he is worth. But with the right care, such talents can also prove the most rewarding.
Jovetic was compared to all manner of players in his younger years, from boyhood idol Andriy Shevchenko through to Johan Cruyff. But the most accurate assessment might have belonged to Prandelli, who compared him to Francesco Totti. He was not suggesting they were identical talents but simply that both were unorthodox players who do not fit easily into classical tactical schemes.
It is easy to forget that Totti, too, perplexed managers in his younger years. If Carlos Bianchi had got his way back in 1996, the player would have been sent out on loan to Sampdoria. Who knows how his career would have unfolded if Roma’s owner, Franco Sensi, had not pulled the plug?
Instead, there was Totti 18 years later, still at Roma and scoring against City last month as he wrings the last drops from a career that has variously seen him deployed, like Jovetic, as a No. 10, a winger, and a false nine.
It would be presumptuous in the extreme to suggest that the younger player could go on to match such a career. But equally, it would be foolish of City to toss him aside, without finding out what he is capable of first.