Juventus' Roberto Pereyra Would Be a Great Fit for Premier League Side Watford

Everyone who is old enough to recall football in the 1990s remembers it as the heyday of Serie A, with Italian teams and players dominating the landscape across Europe. There is little doubt that other leagues quickly overtook it as the continent's most prominent, but they did so by snapping up the best the peninsula had to offer.

The decline of the game here coincided with the rise of the English Premier League, with some familiar faces at the heart of this shift.

In 1996—fresh from leading Juventus to a Champions League triumph—Bianconeri captain Gianluca Vialli left for Chelsea, with team-mate Fabrizio Ravanelli simultaneously joining Middlesbrough.

There were countless others, and while Serie A is some distance from that golden era, its influence in the UK is once again growing strong. Claudio Ranieri's exploits in leading Leicester City to a stunning title victory have seen Italian coaches once again become fashionable, with Antonio Conte set to lead Chelsea next term and Walter Mazzarri in place at Watford.

Udinese owner Giampaolo Pozzo took control of the Vicarage Road outfit in June 2012, and the club's official website announced last month that former Inter Milan and Napoli boss Mazzarri would be in control from July 1. 

Watford enjoyed a bright start to last season, sitting seventh in the table after 18 games, but their form would rapidly deteriorate, and winning just four of their remaining 20 matches ultimately cost coach Quique Sanchez Flores his job.

Mazzarri is expected to improve upon that and is already believed to be looking towards Italy for reinforcements. According to a Sky Sport Italia report earlier this week (h/t ESPN FC), Juventus midfielder Roberto Pereyra has emerged as a primary target, a deal that would seemingly suit all three parties. 

That story cited a potential fee of around £10 million (€13 million) for the 25-year-old, which the Bianconeri could use to sign Miralem Pjanic of AS Roma, an ideal signing for the Turin giants as this previous post explains.

It would provide a fresh start and an exciting opportunity for the player himself, whose progress undeniably stalled during 2015/16. Indeed, if they are to benefit from his potential arrival, Watford must hope that last season was a blip and they can help Pereyra rediscover the form he displayed a year earlier.

His career has already taken a number of surprising twists, with the River Plate youth product first landing in Italy back in 2011. He subsequently made 74 league appearances in three seasons at Udinese, netting eight goals along the way and establishing himself as a player with a bright future ahead.

Yet given that modest return, Juventus unexpectedly agreed a 12-month loan deal in July 2014. Their official website revealed they had paid €1.5 million to do so, with an expensive-looking fixed price of a further €14 million to make the move permanent.

Per the same source, that fee was duly paid at the end of a 2014/15 campaign in which Pereyra proved he was a valuable member of coach Massimiliano Allegri’s squad, usurping some well-established names in the process.

While Andrea Pirlo, Arturo Vidal and Claudio Marchisio were all clearly more accomplished players, none possessed the pace and directness offered by the Argentina native. His total of 35 Serie A appearances was more than any other player at the club, and he featured in a total of 52 matches in all competitions, recording six goals and four assists along the way.

Pereyra did so mostly playing behind the forwards in what Allegri described to La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Football Italia) as a "4-3-and then we’ll see" formation. He was also fielded as part of the midfield trio in a variety of tactical setups, occasionally even filling in as a wing-back when the Juventus boss reverted to a 3-5-2 framework.

That bodes well given Mazzarri’s preference for a similar system, and he won the praise of Allegri after a particularly strong November 2014 showing against Lazio in which he arguably deserved to be named man-of-the-match.

"Roberto’s got great technique and an important quality: he always drives towards goal with great intensity," the Juve boss said at his post-match press conference. "It was also his best performance of the season."

While his biggest contribution that day was the superb pass on the turn to Paul Pogba seen in the video above, Allegri also used that aforementioned interview to tell reporters that Pereyra "needs to work on his finishing."

It was a comment supported by the statistics, with Squawka.com showing his shooting accuracy sat at just 45 percent by the end of the season. Yet, as the campaign drew to a close, Pereyra would show he had indeed looked to improve, netting a stunning goal against Hellas Verona (shown below) on the final day.

In addition to that increased attacking prowess—and no matter where he was deployed on the field—he always gave maximum effort, proving to be surprisingly effective defensively as he followed the example set by his tenacious compatriot, Carlos Tevez.

His effectiveness in that phase of the game was not reflected statistically, however, with WhoScored.com showing Pereyra averaged just 0.6 tackles and 0.7 interceptions per Serie A outing in 2014/15.

Yet watching Juventus closely throughout that campaign, there was no denying his impact in disrupting opponents and quickly transitioning defence into attack. That was most noticeable in the club’s run to the Champions League final, and—having only made his international debut earlier in the season—he was included in Gerardo Martino’s Argentina squad for the Copa America.

By the time 2015/16 began, Pereyra had established himself as an important player for club and country, winning the Serie A title and Coppa Italia, while also collecting runners-up medals in the Champions League and Copa America after the Albiceleste lost to Chile.

But rather than continue in the same manner, he suffered with a raft of injuries, limited to just nine starts in all competitions. According to figures taken from WhoScored.com, Pereyra totalled just 859 minutes of action, contributing no goals and managing just a single assist, against AS Roma last August.

While February saw the club hand him a new contract that will run until 2020, per FourFourTwo, his rapid decline in production has inevitably led to the current talk of an exit when the Italian transfer window opens on July 1.

Pereyra discussed his lengthy absence from the starting XI during an interview with Juve’s in-house TV channel JTV (h/t the club’s website), admitting that "it’s not been easy following matches from the sidelines without being able to help my team-mates."

It appears he will now not be given the chance to do so but will be an ideal fit for Watford, able to fill a number of roles in Mazzarri’s favoured 3-4-2-1 formation.

It seems Roberto Pereyra and Juventus will part ways, but the Premier League side could do much worse than add him to their squad should the opportunity arise.