Aston Villa have completed the signing of Jordan Veretout from Ligue 1 side Nantes with the midfielder signing a five-year deal.
Jordan Veretout is a French U-21 International who normally plays in the centre of the midfield. He has been in Nantes’s first team for the majority of the last four seasons, and at the young age of 22, already playing four consecutive seasons in one of the higher divisions in Europe, gives him an extremely solid platform, to carry on in his career.
Last season, in all of the 36 appearances he played in, he was positioned in the midfield. He played nearly 50% of them games as an attacking midfielder. In 13 of the 36 matches he played in, he was positioned just as a centre midfielder, and the other 6 games, he played the role of a defensive midfielder. This indicates his preferred position is an attacking midfielder, but this also states, he can adapt to the formation of Aston Villa if he joined, and could play in a defensive or attacking role at the centre of the pitch.
On the goal scoring front, he has been quite inconsistent in the last four seasons, as he scored 6 out of 35 appearances in the league. This is pretty impressive for his first season in the first team, especially at the tender age of 18. In the next two seasons combined in Ligue 1, he played 58 games and only scored once in that time. From this statistic, Jordan does not seem to be prolific at all, even for a midfielder.
Although, last season that dramatically changed, and surprisingly, he scored 7 goals in 36 games, showing the sort of player he can be. Throughout his career at Nantes, for his assists record, he has been the opposite compared to his goals, and has been very consistent for making nearly the same number of assists each season. Jordan made 5 goals in his first season, then 6 the season after. He then made 4 assists in the 2013-2014 season, and last season, he made 5 assists.
In his career at Nantes, he gained a lot of experience within the French League – making nearly 150 appearances in all competitions for them. Another eye-catching record is that he has won the FIFA U-20 World Cup with France, in 2013. In that tournament, he also scored, and made an assist, making 7 appearances. He has already performed at under 18’s, 19’s, 20’s and under 21’s level for France.
This indicates he is a future star for the French national side, and with the experience he has already gained, he has the potential to be a star in a big league like the Premiership as well. This could be truly a quality signing for Villa.
