He reminds him of Toni Kroos! Niko Kovac has never had a player like Joey Veerman at BVB before

No question, Borussia Dortmund have not been short of capable central midfielders, in both attacking and defensive roles, in recent seasons. Marcel Sabitzer, Felix Nmecha, Jobe Bellingham, Julian Brandt and, until the winter break last season, Pascal Groß are all different types of player, but they all have quality. What they have in common, though, is that coach Niko Kovac apparently did not trust any of them to build Dortmund's play properly through the middle.

You can hardly blame them for that. Throughout his coaching career, Kovac has shown he is not especially keen on building through the centre and, particularly under pressure, prefers the quick pass out to the wing. If BVB's play last season felt short on creativity, that was also because the central midfielders saw comparatively little of the ball, while the wide players could be marked tightly on the flanks.

How many touches did Joey Veerman have for BVB against Villarreal?

This summer, though, BVB signed a player from whom even Kovac cannot coach that central instinct out of him, or does not want to. Joey Veerman constantly demands the ball into feet in central areas. Thanks to his outstanding passing, equally impressive game intelligence and a sense of timing that recalls metronomes such as Rodri, Toni Kroos or Andrea Pirlo, he usually does pretty good things with the ball when he gets it.

After coming on in the fortunate 3-2 win against TSG Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga, he finally brought calm and structure to Dortmund's play. Then he ran the game from the start in the again unnecessarily tight 3-2 win at the start of the Champions League against FC Villarreal, making the team-mates around him better. Felix Nmecha alongside him in the double pivot, Marcel Sabitzer to his left ahead of him, Konstantinos Karetsas until his injury and then Ethan Nwaneri to his right ahead of him not only kept finding Veerman, they also got the ball back from him in even better positions than before.

Against Villarreal he had 99 touches, a strong number even for a midfielder playing under a coach not called Niko Kovac and in a side built around a more dominant style than BVB's. Of his 87 passes, 82 found a team-mate, and the range of those passes, and the variety of team-mates receiving them, also stood out. Veerman played the ball to virtually everyone in every area of the pitch, and he did it under pressure too. Like his role model Pirlo, Veerman is neither the quickest nor the most dynamic, but that barely matters when, as against Villarreal, he hardly gives the ball away and still picks smart passes under pressure.

What did Niko Kovac say about Joey Veerman?

"He is really good on the ball, which is why we signed him, precisely so that in these tight situations, when the pressure from the opponent becomes so great, we can still find solutions in tight spaces," Kovac had already said in praise of the Dutchman after the game against Hoffenheim. Against Villarreal, the assist king of last season in the Eredivisie (14 assists) was even better. After this match at the latest, it is easy to see why Veerman, who arrived from PSV Eindhoven for a fee of around €22 million, was described by some experts as the best transfer for the Bundesliga even before the season started.

Keep this up and Joey Veerman could become not only the player Borussia Dortmund have been searching for, and the one who gives BVB what they have badly lacked of late. He could also be the man who cures Niko Kovac of his latent fear of the centre. That might be the even better news.

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