Why Jérémy Jacquet may be the ‘heir to Virgil van Dijk’ for Liverpool | Liverpool

When you miss 18 months of soccer, there’s a pure eagerness to make up for misplaced time. Jérémy Jacquet has definitely achieved that. This time final yr Rennes recalled him from a mortgage spell at Ligue 2 aspect Clermont Foot and now he has been signed by Liverpool for £60m.

The situations had been at all times ripe for Jacquet to succeed at Rennes, a membership identified for creating expertise. However even by their requirements, the 2005 era is one thing particular. Désiré Doué, Mathys Tel, Jeanuël Belocian, Lesley Ugochukwu and, come the summer season, Jacquet can have all left Rennes, however not earlier than pushing one another to larger heights throughout their childhood.

Nonetheless, Jacquet’s progress was stunted in his teenage years, albeit not actually. The defender grew by 10cm in a yr, which was not with out its complication. For 18 months, Jacquet hardly performed and required surgical procedure to take away the top of a cartilage. “For Jérém, it was progress accidents, Osgood-Schlatter, issues like that. you’re going to lose time,” recollects Laurent Viaud, his supervisor at under-19s stage.

Because it transpires, these accidents gave Jacquet recent momentum. “When he got here again, he wished to eat the whole lot up,” says Viaud. “It was bordering on us having to sluggish him down as a result of we needed to handle him as a result of in any other case, in some unspecified time in the future, he was going to blow up. The day younger gamers come again from harm they’ve a want to develop as a result of they know what it’s wish to be off the pitch, out of coaching. Abruptly, they forge a mentality that could be higher than that of those that had been completely on the pitch.”

Rennes had been additionally relieved to see Jacquet had not misplaced any of his technical presents. “Their our bodies change, they might change into much less coordinated – that’s the place you may have a doubt,” says Viaud. However that was not the case for Jacquet, who was already thought-about a “full” defender – bestowed with “velocity, aggression, a powerful heading sport, and above all, technical high quality”. He honed his method whereas taking part in in midfield at a younger age. When he first arrived on the membership, he was profiled as a defensive midfielder and took inspiration from Paul Pogba. “I at all times wished to play like him,” Jacquet instructed L’Équipe. The affect is obvious in Jacquet’s expansive and bold – typically overly bold – passing sport.

Jacquet was initially against taking part in deeper however he gave in to his coaches. “They knew soccer higher than me at that time,” admitted Jacquet, who has developed as a defender whereas sustaining the soccer IQ of a midfielder. “The place he has actually superior is in his studying of the state of affairs and studying of the trajectory of the ball,” says Viaud. He has improved with expertise, along with his mortgage spell at Clermont Foot – the place Jacquet says his profession “began” – essential.

“It’s off the pitch the place we noticed the distinction,” says Viaud, noting the distinction between the Jacquet who left Rennes and the one who returned. “Right here in Rennes, our boys are in a cocoon. He noticed what Ligue 2 was, what a coaching centre was in Ligue 2. And but at Clermont, they don’t have a foul coaching centre, however he noticed the coaching situations you’ll be able to have. In Rennes, we’re terribly fortunate.”

His performances in Ligue 2 impressed to the extent that, final February, Rennes paid practically €1m to deliver again the defender early. The charge made Jacquet the Seventeenth-most costly departure in Clermont’s historical past however the membership’s supervisor, Laurent Batlles, was determined to maintain the younger defender.

It was clear that Jacquet would play a job within the second a part of the season at Rennes, however what wasn’t foreseeable was how vital he would change into in Habib Beye’s aspect. Regardless of Anthony Rouault and Lilian Brassier each arriving for a mixed price of €25m that month, Jacquet grew to become indispensable, beginning 11 of Rennes’ 14 remaining league video games and instigating an increase up the desk.

That has continued this season, with Jacquet taking part in each sport however for 2 he missed as a result of suspension. Abdelhamid Aït Boudlal, an thrilling Moroccan 19-year-old, has joined him within the workforce at centre-back, giving Jacquet a extra senior position. “I’ve to be extra of a presence within the dressing room and on the pitch,” he says. Charged with larger duty, his stage has remained excessive, even when there are nonetheless weaknesses. Whereas he’s spectacular on the ball, he admits that he might be “nonchalant” at instances. However at his age, it’s higher to play with confidence than with worry of shedding the ball, and his ambition will serve him as he makes the step as much as the Premier League subsequent season.

And he can have leaders round him, not least within the type of Virgil van Dijk, one of many nice defenders of the twenty first century. Jacquet named the Netherlands worldwide, in addition to his centre-back accomplice Ibrahima Konaté, as an inspiration, and Viaud sees the Frenchman because the Dutchman’s pure “inheritor” – and he has an eye fixed, given he labored as a scout for Liverpool throughout the Rafael Benítez period.

“I believe the recruiters have seen in Jérém the inheritor to Van Dijk as a result of in a variety of areas Jérém seems to be like him,” says Viaud. “I might virtually say he’s sooner than Van Dijk. He has to study from gamers like Van Dijk, however there’s a variety of similarity between the 2.” Viaud provides that any scout who did not recognise Jacquet’s enormous potential could be responsible of “skilled misconduct”.

“I used to be from the era of Marcel Desailly – I used to be at college with him. Jérém is Desailly on the defensive aspect and Laurent Blanc on the attacking aspect; he’s a mixture of the 2. While you see the careers the 2 of them had, actually, I can’t think about how far Jérém can go. He can actually outline his era of defenders.” They’re large sneakers to fill, however Jacquet has already grown loads – each bodily and metaphorically. As Rennes’ document sale – above Ousmane Dembélé and Doué – he seems to be able to filling them.

That is an article by Get French Soccer Information