Player Focus: Juve Switch Most Likely for Jovetic

For 71 minutes on the final day of the season, Fiorentina were in third place and set to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in four years. By obliterating Pescara 5-1, they’d put themselves in a position to seize upon any mistake Milan might make at Siena and things looked to be going their way.

A goal behind and a man down too after Massimo Ambrosini’s red card, Milan were on the brink of throwing everything away. Until, that is, Mario Balotelli converted an equalising penalty in the 83rd minute and Philippe Mexes got the winner in the 86th.

It was tough for Fiorentina to take.

Afterwards, a number of their supporters went to the city’s Campo di Marte station to hurl some rather unsavoury abuse at Milan as they passed through on a train from Siena. There was a great sense of injustice amid the suspicion that their more illustrious rivals had benefited from some rather dubious refereeing decisions. Borrowing a slogan from Juventus and adapting it for their own purposes, Fiorentina fans said in defiance that they were “terzo sul campo” or third on the pitch.

Their bitterness was understandable. Although Fiorentina would have greatly exceeded their pre-season expectations by qualifying for the Champions League, to not do so threatened to have one particular ramification for the club. That regarded the future of Stevan Jovetic, a player worthy of playing in that competition every year who, unless he left, would now have to miss out on it for a fourth straight season.

Had they qualified would he have been more inclined to remain another year at the Artemio Franchi? Perhaps, he might, yes. And anyway isn’t the kind of football Fiorentina are playing under Vincenzo Montella, the newfound optimism and rediscovered enthusiasm about the place, persuasive enough on its own to make him stay?

“For quality of play Fiorentina deserved to win the Scudetto [this year],” former coach Cesare Prandelli said. Some believe they can do just that next season if they build on their success and perform as well in the transfer window as they did last summer. All the indications are good so far with Joaquin, for instance, supposedly close to joining. So there’s reason enough to stick around.

If - and it’s a big if - Fiorentina were to win the Scudetto for only the third time, 44 years after their last league title, Jovetic would arguably be the symbol of it.

Taken into the city’s heart like Giancarlo Antognoni, Roberto Baggio and Gabriel Batistuta before him, were that really to happen, he would achieve something that all of them have come close to doing but never managed to do. At 23, Jovetic has the time to be that guy.

Alas, that’s the romantic talking, not the realist. After five years in Florence, you can appreciate why Jovetic feels it’s time to move on, time for a new challenge. He owes the club a lot - they invested 8m euros in him at 18, developed him, trusted in his talent, they gave him playing time, exposure and made him the star he is today, standing by him when he was out for over a year - 462 days to be precise - with a serious knee injury suffered in 2010.

But Jovetic has given Fiorentina a lot too. He didn’t have to stay after last season, a second straight year of disappointment in which the team came dangerously close to relegation. The club recognise that. So out of respect, a year ago the owners promised him that they wouldn’t stand in his way if he wanted to leave at the end of this season. “He’s free to do it,” Andrea Della Valle said. “Of course, I hope he stays here but if he were to choose something different it’s totally understandable. Up until now he has acted in a correct manner.”

Made aware that Jovetic could leave, Montella respected the player’s ambition and appeared to give his blessing “as long as [Fiorentina] come to be adequately paid.” General manager Sandro Mencucci echoed that sentiment. "Jovetic wants a new experience and we'll try to make him happy, but only if a suitable offer comes in."

Speaking while on international duty, midfielder Alberto Aquilani added: “We’ll miss him. I think that he is leaving. I haven’t spoken to him but I know that a year ago a promise was made. A player like him can make himself comfortable at any club at the highest level.”

Interest, as you might expect, isn’t lacking. It has been longstanding too. Jovetic really brought himself to the attention of mainstream audiences and by the same token Europe’s biggest clubs in the 2009-10 season when he scored a brace in a famous victory over Liverpool and another bittersweet one against that year’s runners’ up Bayern Munich, who knocked them out on away goals with a little help from the poor decisions of referee Tom Henning Øvrebø in the first leg.  

Then came the aforementioned knee injury, which meant Jo-Jo missed the entire 2010-11 campaign. Eager to make his return and to show that any fears he wouldn’t be the same player again were misplaced, he came back better than ever the next.

A scorer of 14 goals, it was his best season and Fiorentina needed it to be. Heavily reliant on him as they battled the drop, he was, along with Antonio Di Natale and Edinson Cavani one of the most important players relative to his team in Serie A, accounting for 61% of Fiorentina’s goals in the first half of the 2011-12 season. That figure dropped to a still high 38% by the end of it, which goes to show how great an influence he had on the team.

That influence, you might argue, has slightly diminished this season. Even though WhoScored’s ratings ranked him the eighth best performer in Serie A with an average of 7.53, Jovetic has been good but not great at times. Other Fiorentina players - Gonzalo Rodriguez, Borja Valero, David Pizarro and Adem Ljajic have arguably been better.

In comparison with a year ago, Jovetic has played four games more and scored one goal less [achieving a total of 13 - which, incidentally, is only 18% of Fiorentina’s total]. Of the 27 players to have found the net on 10 or more occasions this season in Serie A, only Francesco Totti, Amauri, Mirko Vucinic and Josip Ilicic have a worse conversion rate (11.5%).

Judging him and others - like Ilicic and to some extent Totti - on this is to forget that he isn’t and has never been an orthodox centre-forward. On his arrival in Florence, Jovetic was more a No.10 with a sense for goal who either played out on the left or just off a No.9 like Alberto Gilardino. His hold up play, his ability to pull defenders out of position by coming short to bring others into the attacking phase with quick give-and-gos make up his game. Only four players, incidentally, created more ‘clear cut’ chances than Jovetic in Serie A this season (13).  

While Fiorentina would ideally like to keep him, there’s a growing sense that it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he left. They have become a team under Montella in the truest sense of the word - a collective that’s not dependent on any one individual. They finished second top scorers in Serie A this season behind Napoli without an Edinson Cavani-like figure. Sixteen different players got on the scoresheet.

With Giuseppe Rossi back fit, Ljajic realising his potential, Oleksandar Iakovenko already signed from Belgian champions Anderlecht and other strikers from Burak Yilmaz to Mario Gomez being linked with the club, Fiorentina are well placed to cope without Jo-Jo. Interestingly, a poll conducted by a fans’ site indicated as much too. The answer: “Jovetic must stay” got the fewest votes. Most were instead split between “never to Juve” and “yes, but for money.”

Much as Fiorentina supporters don’t want to accept it, Juventus do appear the more likely destination for Jovetic. Relations between the two clubs were at a low ebb last summer after the Dimitar Berbatov debacle. Fiorentina had gone through the proper channels to sign him. They’d got Manchester United’s consent and paid for the player’s plane tickets so he could travel to Italy and undergo a medical. Juventus then hijacked the move and in the end they both lost out as Berba joined Fulham.

That appeared to scupper any chances Juventus believed they might have of one day signing Jovetic. However, business is business and just as Fiorentina once sold Baggio and more recently Felipe Melo to them, as long as the deal they get represents the best for the club the chances are it will get done.  “For us,” Fiorentina director of sport Daniele Prade said, “Juve, Manchester, Liverpool are all the same.” There’s no one they won’t sell to so long as the price is right.

The market for Jovetic is hotting up. Juventus are believed to face competition for his signature from Arsenal. They are said to be balking at Fiorentina’s 30m euro asking price, though. Typical Arsene Wenger, you might argue, unprepared to spend big on a player. Except in this case, his reported reticence is understandable. That amount of money is the kind you invest in a player capable of radically transforming your team rather than just improving it, which is what Jovetic would do. He’d add another layer of quality, sure, but enough to justify that price? It’s reasonable of Wenger to think twice.

Also for a team that scored more goals on the counter-attack than any other in the Premier League this season (7) it might be worth bearing in mind that Jo-Jo didn’t score in nine attempts in those situations for Fiorentina over the current campaign. Other than that though, he’d be a good fit, he’s young and believes “I’m at only 70% of my ability.” There’s still potential to tap.

Chelsea have been mentioned too. Yet in all honesty, there does not appear to be much space for Jovetic either up front now that André Schürrle is set to be brought in from Bayer Leverkusen or in behind among the likes of Eden Hazard, Juan Mata and Oscar.

Reasons to believe Juventus have the upper hand are as follows: Staying in Italy, according to his agent Falil Ramadani, is his preference. “For me,” Jovetic told La Repubblica not so long ago, “this is still the best league.” When asked if the Premier League or La Liga had ever tempted him, he replied: “Everyone makes their own decisions. As a kid I wanted to play in Italy and even if the others leave I am happy to be here.”

There’s perhaps an element of go-with-what-you-know to his thinking. If Jovetic were to join Juventus, he’d be challenging for titles - something he knows they can offer certainly as more of a guarantee than Arsenal can. Then there’s the prospect of being reunited at club level with his international teammate and strike partner Mirko Vucinic. “I believe that in Montenegro they’d be very proud of having two compatriots in the most important and prestigious club in Italy,” Vucinic told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

That comment was made a year ago. Juventus were linked with Jovetic then and haven’t given up the pursuit. So why do they want him so badly? Well, in Antonio Conte’s first season, Juventus were very tactically versatile. Like Fiorentina this year they alternated between 4-3-3 and 3-5-2 depending on the opposition, which would make Jovetic’s integration easier.

This season, however, they were less flexible. Juventus played 4-3-3 just once and 3-5-2 on 33 occasions. That, according to Conte, wasn’t entirely because he felt it was their best system, rather it was because in the absence of Simone Pepe, who was injured for much of the season, he felt they lacked a player with the skillset to play wide-left in the attack of a 4-3-3. Jovetic would, among many other things, restore that option and represent an upgrade on Pepe. That’s also why his signing should perhaps be seen in isolation from those of other forward players like Fernando Llorente and, prospectively, Gonzalo Higuain.

The papers in Italy believe an 18m euro bid plus promising midfielder-cum-defender Luca Marrone - a player Montella is said to rate very highly - is in the offing for Jovetic. Juventus have other bargaining chips to bring to the negotiating table too should Marrone not be deemed sufficient. Fabio Quagliarella, Alessandro Matri, their share of Mauricio Isla, or Sebastian Giovinco could all be used as alternative collateral or further leverage, which once again, perhaps gives them the edge over other interested parties and the packages that they’re able to put together.

A deal could apparently be done in the next 10 days. A lot can happen in the meantime, but it seems that Jovetic may well become Juvetic soon enough.