“I doubt that Sergio Ramos will become the player he once was,” said our consultant Eric Roy

0

Recruited during the last summer transfer window, Sergio Ramos has not yet played any match under the colors of PSG. Injured knee and calf, the Spanish defender has been dragging his injuries for many months. But her recovery seems to be taking a good turn since the Spanish defender resumed team training on Tuesday, November 9. For what prospects? Answers with Eric Roy, consultant for franceinfo: sport.

Franceinfo: sport: Sergio Ramos resumed group training on Tuesday, November 9. What kind of signal is sent? Are we going to see him play in the league soon?

Eric Roy : That he comes back to training is a first step. Then he will have a fortnight in collective training in my opinion, before being potentially selectable to play a match. I think that Mauricio Pochettino will gradually bring him back to competition, that is to say by first putting him on the bench, then entering perhaps 25 or even 30 minutes on the pitch, then a little more, until he is titular. However, I have a big doubt that he will become the player he once was.

Because seeing him really on the pitch is one thing, seeing him performing well on the pitch is another. There are two distinct things to observe: to see a player replay in an official match and to see the Sergio Ramos that we know, at the level where we knew him when he was in great form at Real Madrid.

If all goes well, that is to say if he trains again daily and gradually returns to competition, in my opinion, we will not see the real Sergio Ramos before February or March 2022. A by then, he will have ten or fifteen games in his legs, and he will have picked up the pace.

All this in the perspective that his recovery takes place without new injury …

Absoutely. Already, the big uncertainty for him is how he will feel the resumption of training. Because he is a player who has not played an official match since May 5. This means that he has not played for more than seven months, knowing that before May 5, his last match was already in March, that he did not start, and that he did played only 4 minutes.

With such a stop, it can take time to regain rhythm, a peace of mind not to have pain on the restart. The more so as the muscular injuries to the calf, like the one from which Ramos suffers, are long and the recurrences are numerous.

Sergio Ramos has never played for Paris since his arrival in the capital. Will it also be necessary to count on a period of adaptation within the team?

Yes, that’s for sure, but the problem is not there. He is integrated into the group. He doesn’t play, but he’s in the locker room every day. He has familiarized himself with the environment, his teammates he knows, so there will be no worries in the game as long as he is in great shape and when he regains full possession of his means.

The arrival of Ramos will have what consequence (s) in the group at the level of the game plan?

This arrival will perhaps allow PSG to set up a system that is much talked about with three central defenders, who are Ramos, Marquinhos and Kimpembe. Now, if Ramos comes back well as expected, which for me is uncertain, it gives Pochettino an additional solution.

Ramos was already injured last season at Real Madrid and has been injured since the start of this season in Paris. Was PSG right to recruit him?

It was a bet to take a player who played, over the last season, only 15 games as a starter in La Liga, instead of 35 two years ago. A calculation has been made, I think, with the risk that it will take a long time to come back. Note that the important element at the time was that he was free from any contract. Now, we also know that he was one of the best defenders in the world, so it’s necessarily a big salary burden.

Today, it is too early to say if PSG have made a good move or not. But it is obvious that if Ramos plays ten league games this season without being where he was in other years, it could be considered a mistake. As far as I’m concerned, I prefer to judge a recruitment at the end of the season, the statistics at that time will tell if it was a winning or losing bet.

In the event that Sergio Ramios is injured again and therefore cannot play, what are PSG’s options?

From the moment the contract is signed, PSG will have to fulfill it, even if Ramos cannot do what he was signed for. If the club are to do without him this season – he has already done almost half without him – they will have to deal with players who are able to replace him in this position. I am thinking in particular of Kehrer, Diallo when you put him in the center, and Danillo who has played a few times in this position.

Today, it is obvious that the recruitment, somewhere exceptional, of PSG (Ramos, Donnarumma, Wijnaldum, Messi, Mendes, Hakimi) on paper at the end of August, is to be put into perspective. What seemed very attractive at the start requires confirmation because we see that Messi has not played much and does not have the standards that were his at Barça. Ramos is injured all the time. Donnarumma plays every second or third game as he competes with Navas, as you would expect. Wijnaldum is struggling to find his place, and Hakimi also has some defensive weaknesses. This observation therefore puts everything that has been said into perspective, that PSG was an almost unbeatable team. Today, it is true that on what they show and in relation to this recruitment, I still see teams which are in front, in particular collectively, like Bayern or City. Because collectively the PSG has not yet found its cruising speed.


source site