It’s been a difficult season for Aston Villa loanee Nicolo Zaniolo, but his recent form has earned praise from boss Unai Emery.
The 24-year-old’s arrival last summer sparked excitement and optimism about the impact that he could make for us, even if only for a year during his season-long loan deal from Galatasaray.
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While the early signs were promising, the Italian international ultimately struggled to add a decisive end product to his play, as he’s registering just three goals and no assists in 33 appearances across all competitions.
Many of those outings have come off the bench in the latter stages of games given that absence of a difference-making impact in the final third, but having rescued a point against Sheffield Utd in December before salvaging a draw for us at West Ham Utd earlier this month, when he has contributed, it has been pivotal.
The issue for Zaniolo though has been inconsistency, while competition for places in our squad has also ensured he’s had a limited role and hasn’t always been deployed in his preferred position on the pitch.
As we enter crunch time in the business end of the season though, he’s starting to have a more consistent, positive impact on games when involved, and after his run-out in our win over Wolves this weekend, he earned praise from Emery for the improvement that he’s shown.
“His adaptation took longer than expected, but I spoke with him,” the Villa boss said, as per the Athletic’s Jacob Tanswell. “He’s getting better. A lot better. I can tell you and him, he is closer to playing more minutes.”
Villa have eight games remaining in the Premier League as our pursuit of Champions League qualification continues, while we have a quarter-final tie against Lille in the Europa Conference League to come in April.
With a packed fixture list, coupled with injuries and absentees, Zaniolo is hitting form at just the right time as we look to finish the job and achieve our main objectives this year.
It will continue to be a fine balancing act for Emery to get his rotation right for specific games and opposition, but importantly the mentality, application and determination being displayed by Zaniolo will hopefully ensure that he has a big role to play in making this a successful campaign for both him and us.
Time will tell if it ends up being enough to earn a permanent move to Villa, as the feeling at this stage is that perhaps he’ll return to Turkey this summer and a decision will be made on his future to go elsewhere.
Emiliano Buendia is set to return from his injury over pre-season and the arrival of Morgan Rogers in January further boosted our options. In turn, it remains to be seen if Emery wants to keep this group together and stick with what he knows and can still improve, or if there will be a reshuffle ahead of next season with either Zaniolo brought back or a replacement drafted in.
For now though, the focus for all concerned at Villa is on our remaining games in this campaign, and Zaniolo is building momentum and confidence at just the right time to leave his mark regardless of whether or not he stays beyond the next few months.