PROFILE | Charles Vanhoutte keeps his head above water amid OGC Nice crisis | OneFootball

“Everyone understood why I insisted on signing him,” said Franck Haise after Charles Vanhoutte’s debut for OGC Nice back in August. The Belgian opted to leave Union Saint-Gilloise, who he had helped guide to a first-ever Champions League qualification the previous season. 

He did so, he told us back in August, because he sought a new challenge, and also to consolidate a place in the Belgium squad ahead of the World Cup. “By coming here, I think I have increased my chances [of being at the World Cup], but everything depends on my performances. Already, it is a higher-level league, and there are more people who will see me. But the World Cup isn’t in my head yet. I just want to play well, and what happens with the national team is just a bonus,” he told Get French Football News in a roundtable interview. 

It is difficult to say whether the move is helping or hindering his chances, although his continued presence in the Belgium squad shows that he retains the faith of the Red Devils’ French manager, Rudi Garcia.

The problem isn’t so much Vanhoutte, who started excellently at Nice and who continues to be influential, error-free, metronomic, solid… but rather the club. Le Gym are in a turbulent and difficult period, and so Vanhoutte’s qualities are not always showcased in a side that is being chopped and changed as Haise looks for the magic formula.

Vanhoutte – an exception to a failed mercato

But throughout it all, Vanhoutte’s consistency and sang-froid provide a glint of optimism in a dark situation. He is the only one of Nice’s summer signings that has been unequivocally a success and it is also a testament to Vanhoutte’s character to not let his standards drop amid the chaos.

Vanhoutte’s qualities lie in his ability to receive and offload the ball, keeping things ticking, always providing an option, and allowing those around him to shine. The Belgian is limited, granted, and he isn’t the player who is always going to be decisive in the final third, nor does he have that ‘destroyer’ profile that is very in vogue among defensive midfielders. But what he does, he does at a high level. He can be a very valuable player for Nice, and in a short space of time, the Belgium international has shown that, but for his upside to be truly felt, the pieces around him must fit. For now, they don’t.

GFFN | Luke Entwistle