Paris Saint-Germain’s Vitinha returns to England to face Aston Villa, after a disappointing spell at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The 25-year-old has established himself at PSG and will be one of the key players for Luis Enrique at Villa Park.
Vitinha is back in West Midlands, where he was on loan at Wolves from FC Porto during the 2020/21 season.
Ahead of his return to the UK, L’Equipe have a piece on the midfielder’s spell at Molineux and why he struggled at Wolves.
The Portugal international was limited to 711 minutes from 22 games when Nuno Espírito Santo was in charge at the club. He made only five Premier League starts for Wolves and returned to Porto after failing to make a mark in England.
During Vitinha’s time at Wolves, he played alongside Romain Saïss and Fernando Marçal. The duo have spoken to the French newspaper to discuss why the current PSG star found it difficult to impress in the Premier League.
L’Equipe points out Nuno Espírito Santo preferred João Moutinho and Rúben Neves ahead of Vitinha. Saïss has given his take on why the midfielder struggled at Wolves.
“Technically, he was already comfortable. Today, he resists in duels. At the time, much less. He has a game a bit like [Marco] Verratti, with three or four touches before releasing the ball,” he said.
“If you don’t resist physically in England, you get run into. And the refereeing doesn’t always help you. That’s what he lacked, even in training. He would take one touch too many and boom! But he didn’t shy away from work.”
Marçal is currently at Botafogo and blames Vitinha for failing to follow Nuno’s instructions. The left-back is of the belief the manager also made it difficult for the current PSG player at Wolves.
“The coach was difficult with him. Even though he did incredible things in training, he couldn’t convince him. Santo wanted Vitinha to play simple, to release the ball more quickly. He tried to comply, but he also didn’t want to lose his identity,” Marçal explained.
Vitinha had to start 20 league games for Wolves to make his stay permanent. That didn’t happen and despite his struggles, he was then confident of securing a big move.
“One day, I asked him: ‘What do you think you’re going to do next season?’ He was on loan from Porto, but he needed to make 20 starts for Wolverhampton to be forced to buy him. He wasn’t there,” he added.
“He replied: ‘Marçal, I’m going back to Porto, smash everything there and the following season, I’ll go to one of the eight best clubs in Europe.’ I said to myself: ‘Wow, the guy doesn’t play at Wolverhampton, and he thinks he’s going to sign for Manchester City or some club like that? He’s a bit crazy!’ But no, he wasn’t.”
