Georges Mikautadze hits stride as Villarreal’s record buy finds best form | OneFootball

Georges Mikautadze is soaring at Villarreal. He is the club’s second top scorer in LaLiga with eight and second for assists with four, tallying 10 goals and four assists in 31 matches this season.

Last summer’s exits of Alexander Sorloth and Thierno Barry left the attack thin, with only Gerard Moreno and Ayoze Pérez. According to El Periódico Mediterráneo, executives Fernando Roig Negueroles and Miguel Ángel Tena added Tani Oluwaseyi and Mikautadze, signed from Lyon for 30 million euros, a club-record fee.

Lyon-born on 31 October 2000 but capped by Georgia, the 25-year-old hit 17 in 47 for Lyon in 2024/25, including four in the Europa League, plus 11 assists. Villarreal valued his movement, craft and final ball as much as his goals.

Expectation matched the fee and the start was tough. In a side built for the Champions League, he had to dislodge internationals such as Moreno, Pérez and at times Nicolas Pepe. Early substitutions under Marcelino and adaptation to Spain and the language left him with two goals across the first three months.

Work and better decisions underpinned his surge from December, as he pinned centre-backs, offered an outlet and made the runs that free the wingers.

The season underlines that impact does not always arrive immediately. Mikautadze has moved from exciting signing to a forward opponents must plan for, producing flashes that recall Butragueño and delivering passes and finishes reminiscent of Villa.

Source: El Periódico Mediterráneo