da 888casino： This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
da 888： Playing his own game.
That is how Blues boss Pep Clotet assessed the development of 21-year-old Fran Villalba during his first couple of months at St Andrew’s.
Speaking ahead of the game against Luton Town, Clotet spoke about just how well he is adapting to the Championship, predominantly how physical the league can be, and how he’s learning to play smart rather than try to play the opposition at their own game:
“I think he understood on Tuesday (against Blackburn), in Spain if he has the ball and someone pushes him from behind, they will give him the foul. Here in England if it is a fair fight, the ref will not give you the foul. You cannot expect your lack of physicality will grant you fouls.
“What I like from him is he saw that lesson very well on Tuesday, in the first-half. In the second-half he got round it, which shows how smart a player he is, he just played quicker.”
Now that he has learned to adapt to the league, there needs to a lot more tangible results coming his way.
Villalba finally got his first goal for the Blues against Middlesbrough a few weeks ago, but if he is really going to show his worth, we need that to start becoming a regular occurrence.
Whilst some leeway can be granted to him because he is so young and that he took some time getting used to things in this country, that leash can only stretch so far before things need to take a step up once again.
And this doesn’t just go for Villalba, but the other Spaniards who joined the club like Agus Medina and Alvaro Gimenez, who between them have contributed just one goal with zero assists (via Transfermarkt).
It’s ok if they want to play ‘their style’ if they aren’t up to adapting fully to the English game, but if they choose to do that, then they have to bring something to the table, and at the moment they just aren’t.
Clotet obviously showed that he wanted to bring a certain style of play to St Andrew’s, based on the players he brought in and their nationalities, but if the players don’t start producing they could end up putting the Spaniard out of a job.
Then they run the risk of having to deal with a manager who doesn’t look upon them as favourably as Clotet does.