Opinion: Gonalons' quality and personality will bolster Roma engine

One in, one out. Following the departure of Leandro Paredes to Zenit for a fee rising to €27 million, Monday's signing of Maxime Gonalons from Lyon for €5m quickly reinforces Roma's defensive midfield stocks, while adding experience and personality.

Bringing leadership, a strong mentality and undeniable footballing quality, the former Lyon captain joins the Giallorossi ready for the step up in class and at the peak of his powers. Having featured 330 times for his beloved boyhood club, whom he joined at the age of 10, the 28-year-old leaves Les Gones eighth on their all-time appearances list and with seven international caps for France.

In terms of how he'll fit into Eusebio Di Francesco's plans, the season will reveal all. You would perhaps assume that Gonalons will, initially at least, serve as a very competent understudy to Daniele De Rossi - but with Roma set for an extremely busy season ahead, and the 33-year-old De Rossi likely to be managed carefully to last the full campaign, Gonalons should receive plenty of minutes to prove himself.

This will allow him to gradually adjust to life at his new home, while ensuring Roma are never without a combative option in the middle of the park.

Possessing a sound positional sense and awareness to match, Gonalons reads the play coherently from the base of midfield, ensuring he makes the right movements and choices to intercept opposition attacks. He then contrasts this intelligence nicely when it comes to actually making his interventions: the Frenchman is as hard as nails in the tackle.

Standing at an imposing 187cm, the forceful, combative midfielder will certainly add plenty of grit, aggression and toughness to Roma, for he'll never take a backwards step if he believes he can win back possession (just ask Kevin Strootman, who enjoyed more than a few battles with his new teammate during last season’s Europa League).

In addition, the fact he's so adept at vigorously pressing his adversaries and performing his man-marking duties offers further reason why he should fit in smoothly with Di Francesco's proactive defensive demands.

Contributing to his manager's desire to pass out from the back won't be a problem for Gonalons either, as, just like De Rossi is and Paredes was, he's very accustomed to dropping in between the central defenders to ensure numerical superiority, in order to cleanly progress upfield.

Although he has a slightly less expansive range of passing than De Rossi and Paredes, he still has a repertoire that enables him to play a variety of imaginative, incisive and simpler passes for ball retention purposes.

Although no-one should expect him to be a prolific goalscorer, His heading prowess will see him provide a valuable threat on attacking set pieces too, while his tidy dribbling ability adds another string to his offensive armoury.

By the numbers, he stacks up well, as in his 3911 minutes of action last term he made 8.86 defensive actions per 90 minutes (6.05 of those being interceptions), won nearly 60% of his aerial duels and notably completed 86.26% of his forward passes, a figure that's all the more striking due to his average forward pass length of 20.63 metres.

In his first interview, Gonalons gave an insight into his excitement about joining Roma and how he's hoping to enjoy great success during this next chapter of his career.

"I’m very proud to have joined this massive club, one of the best in Italy. I’m both proud and aware of the responsibility. I respect those who have come before me and I want to win trophies here, showing what I’m made of," he explained.

"I was convinced by everything that’s going on at the club. I’m a defensive midfielder who loves the physical side of the game and is ready to give everything for the shirt. This is what drives me, along with the desire to win trophies and fight for the league title."

Gonalons is the club's fourth major signing this summer - alongside Hector Moreno, Rick Karsdorp and Lorenzo Pellegrini – and already looks another example of sporting director Monchi's nous in the transfer market and his ability to enhance the quality and depth of Roma's talented squad.