Opinion: Pastore will add intelligence and guile to Roma attack

Our columnist takes a look at what Javier Pastore might bring to the Roma attack...

Seven years after leaving Serie A, Javier Pastore has finally returned to the league where he enjoyed great success.

Having played 82 times for Palermo from 2009-2011 - a spell where he impressed immensely, and yielded a lively 16 goals and 16 assists - he subsequently earned a colossal €40 million move to the mighty Paris Saint-Germain.

Here, Pastore would go onto enjoy a largely positive stint too, despite some injury issues and battles with consistency, with him featuring on 269 occasions on his way to scoring 45 goals and laying on 62 assists.

An incredibly gifted operator, the 29-year-old will bring some crucial creativity and imagination into Roma's midfield ranks. Moreover, his versatility, which sees him capable of fulfilling many roles within central and attacking midfield areas will ensure Eusebio Di Francesco will have plenty of tactical flexibility as to how best deploy him.

A maestro with the ball at his feet, there's not many better technicians than the Argentine in European football. He's blessed with a sumptuous first touch, handles the ball with aplomb and possesses a vast armoury of skills, feints, shimmies and decisive maneuvers to unbalance his adversaries.

Elegant, elusive and entertaining, the languid playmaker's resistance to pressure duly ensures he excels in 1v1 situations and copes comfortably with opponents blitzing him. Pastore actually uses his foes' vigorous harrying of him to his advantage, for provoking pressure consequently creates a free man and gives him the chance to exploit newly available passing lanes.

To further enhance his value, he notably augments his body postures, plus uses ingenuitive head scans of his surroundings, so he can inherit possession and process what action to take depending on where his opposition, his teammates and unoccupied spaces are located (as shown in the image below).

Whether it be protecting the ball upon receiving, turning away calmly to drive upfield, using his skills to weave away from danger, drawing multiple opponents towards him or contorting his body to play one touch passes, Pastore knows exactly the receiving orientation depending on the angle of the impending pass.

Pastore accompanies the afore beautifully with his inventive passing game, which emphatically amplifies what a destabilising and unbalancing impact he can have on his enemies.

Thriving predominantly in partaking in intricate combination play, playing incisive through balls and bypassing lines of pressure, his enterprising work here will be crucial. With Roma set to come up against many deep sitting defensive blocks throughout next term, his presence will be vital towards manufacturing something special to unlock such disciplined backlines.

The two graphics below indicate his expertise here, where he plays a slick one-two with Neymar before cleverly running in behind.

Moreover, his inch-perfect distribution comes in very handy during counter-attacking instances, for his aptitude at making such quick decisions under duress and executing cleanly should be a real weapon.

Pastore's super intelligent movement ties everything together gloriously, as his spatial awareness and recognition powers enable him to cunningly evade markers to receive and cause decisional crises. Being so adaptable at functioning in multiple zones of the pitch will serve Di Francesco outstandingly, as El Flaco is competent at dropping deep to assist build-up, operating in true central midfield zones, effecting play from out wide and in the half spaces, plus in advanced action areas in and around the box.

Some examples can be found underneath of his nifty movement.

Di Francesco will love the fact he's familiar with undertaking fluid rotations and he's excellent at helping engineering overloads in various areas of the pitch, both essential elements of his philosophy.

At his best when performing his duties with much freedom, in order to fully maximise his qualities, it'll be expected he'll be afforded a reasonable amount of authority to influence proceedings.

Even though he's improved in his defensive output, a weaker characteristic of his, particularly working under the newly installed Arsenal manager, Unai Emery, at PSG, he still uses his sizable 189 cm frame to block passing lanes, stretch out to perform interventions and shift over cohesively to ball local zones. While his percentage of winning defensive duels was below 25% last term, a number that he'll clearly want to increase with Roma, his 2.49 interceptions per 90 and 1.44 won aerial duels p90 illustrate he has a solid base to work with.

Moving onto his offensive numbers, and these suitably demonstrate his strength in this regard, where his 5.61 successful dribbles p90, 4.8 accurate through balls p90, 3.96 accurate long balls p90, 2.11 progressive runs p90, 2.28 accurate crosses p90, 1.56 shots p90 and 0.34 assists p90 punctuate what a multifaceted asset he'll be for the Wolves going forward.

Shrewdly identifying Roma could do with some additional creative reinforcements in midfield, signing Pastore, along with Ante Coric and Bryan Cristante, has been a sound way of addressing the team’s needs in the compartment.

At 29, and in the prime of his career, the experienced and wildly talented Pastore returns to Serie A as a bonafide class act after seven years of honing his craft working with some of the world's finest coaches and players in the French capital.

Wanting a change of scenery and a fresh challenge, PSG's loss is definitely Roma's gain in the case of Pastore.