Why has Stevan Jovetic struggled to get his Manchester City career going?

Stevan Jovetic

Manchester City were a very busy club during the summer transfer window. Not only did they recruit a new manager, they also made quite a few significant additions to their squad, spending more than £100M on new players. Among these players were Stevan Jovetic and Alvaro Negredo. Negredo has taken very little time to fit in to the Premier League and is already a regular for City. Jovetic, on the other hand, has struggled a bit.

The Montenegro international is a very talented player, who can play on either wings or as a striker or even a second striker. He was very highly rated at Fiorentina yet has only made 2 appearances for City so far, one of which was in the League Cup. The other appearance was as a substitute against Stoke City in the Premier League. He cost City around £22M this summer yet has seemingly done absolutely nothing to justify that price tag yet.

One of Jovetic’s biggest problems has been with injuries. He is an asset to any team when he’s fit but he spends a lot of time out on the sidelines. Since joining City, he had been struggling with a hamstring injury since the early parts of the season. Breaking in to a City side that is brimming with star players was never going to be an easy task to begin with, but getting injured before he even got a chance to prove his worth didn’t exactly do him too much good. Even if he were fully fit, one would find it very hard to imagine him displacing either Sergio Aguero or Alvaro Negredo at the moment, both of whom have looked excellent so far this season.

Negredo has had a much better start to his City career, although he’s a very different player to Jovetic. Negredo is an out-and-out striker, a big physical presence up front who relies on his ability to bully defenders. His physical style of play has helped him adapt to the Premier League and the fact that he has remained injury-free has helped his case.

It is far too early to write Jovetic off just yet, mostly because he is an absolute handful on his day. His versatility means he can operate almost anywhere in City’s attacking third, implying that if City deploy him on the wings they could have up to three forwards on the field, given that they usually use a formation that requires two strikers.

Jovetic’s biggest challenge is keeping himself fit; he has a long history of injury problems. If he can keep himself fit, he could most certainly challenge Aguero for a place in the starting XI simply because he provides a more creative outlet in the role behind the striker than the Argentine international. He might not score as many goals, but ever since David Silva lost some of his form City have really struggled with their creative play in the final third, and Jovetic could provide just that. The next month will be a crucial one for the Montenegrin. It will be interesting to see what he does to get himself a few more games.