beIN SPORTS

By Jonathan Johnson (@Jon_LeGossip)

This summer has been one of change for Paris Saint-Germain. The French champions replaced coach Laurent Blanc with Unai Emery, while talisman Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Gregory van der Wiel have also departed.

Five new players have arrived at Parc des Princes, with Hatem Ben Arfa, Grzegorz Krychowiak, Thomas Meunier and Giovani Los Celso (already back on loan with formative club Rosario Central) joined earlier this week by Jese Rodriguez.

Although the latter arrived from Real Madrid and Krychowiak from Sevilla, this summer’s signings have been more low-key than usual and early indications suggest that Emery is trying to construct a strong squad instead of a team of talented individuals.

Jese, the most recent of the five new arrivals, is a perfect example of that. The left winger is polyvalent and can play anywhere in the front four of Emery’s favoured 4-2-3-1 formation and Ben Arfa is more or less the same.

“I can play in all four positions in attack,” the former Spain under-21 international revealed at his press conference in Paris on Monday. “I'm versatile and can play on the left or the right or in the middle… but I will play where the coach tells me to. I'm polyvalent."

Jese arrives at Parc des Princes after almost 10 years with Los Blancos and the 23-year-old from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands admitted that it was time for a new challenge and has set himself some ambitious goals for his time in Ligue 1 with Les Parisiens.

"I'm very happy to join PSG,” he said. “I come here with the goal of improving; I'm joining a great team and a great club, with fantastic players, and we want to win as many titles as possible. I will try to learn French as quickly as I can.”

“PSG has a wonderful history, with many titles; it's a great club and a united team. We want to play for everything and win everything. We hope to do well in the Champions League. After 10 years with Real Madrid, I wanted to try something new and PSG gave me the opportunity to join a huge club."

Before injuring the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee back in March of 2014, Jese was extremely highly rated at Santiago Bernabeu. The new PSG No. 22 Emilio Butragueno’s scoring record with Real’s Castilla reserve side in 2012-13 to underline his immense promise.

However, Jese’s strongest quality is his lightning pace and since suffering his knee injury, he was unable to utilise it as much as in the past because he had fallen down the pecking order in the Spanish capital. 

Emery remains convinced that Jese can still blossom into the player who was once touted as their heir to Cristiano Ronaldo’s throne at Real though and the Basque tactician pushed hard for his new club, PSG, to sign the former prodigy.

“A lot of Spanish and English clubs were interested in me,” Jese revealed. “But I'm happy to have joined PSG. I think that the presence of Unai, as well as the conversations I had with the president and Patrick Kluivert, influenced my decision.”

“I watched the club's most recent match, the Trophée des Champions. The team is very strong and gets forward quickly. That's the kind of football I like to play.”

Jese might not have to wait long to get his first taste of Ligue 1 football. The new signing is in Emery’s squad for Friday’s trip to face SC Bastia in the season opener and with Edinson Cavani out injured, the Spaniard might be thrown in at the deep end.

The new boy clearly has a lot of potential talent but the high-pressure environment of Santiago Bernabeu was not the right place to unlock it after his long injury lay-off. There is pressure in Paris too but arguably not as much as there is with Real.

In Le Championnat and under the guidance of a coach who believes in him, Emery, Jese should be able to get back to something close to his best form of old and finally start delivering on some of his impressive potential.