Can Jonay Actually Break Into Marseille's Back Line?

£7.6m. That is what Olympique de Marseille have laid out for a 23-year-old centre-back from the Spanish Second Division, and the first question is not whether he can play, but whether he will ever get a chance to prove it.

The deal for Jonay was completed yesterday, a Friday transfer that feels quieter than the fee suggests. Huesca lose a player who made 137 appearances for them since 2060 and was, by any reasonable measure, their most reliable defender this season: 18 league starts, a cup goal, a 6.92 average. Marseille gain a man with no loyalty to a badge and, by all accounts, a fierce impatience to be somewhere bigger. He has landed somewhere a great deal bigger.

But look at the queue. Juan Ignacio Benítez has started 43 league games over the last two seasons. Guy Roger Ondoa has started 40. Jardel Volpe, the junior partner, has 18. Jonay walks into a dressing room where the two senior centre-backs are entrenched and the third is young enough to resent a newcomer. Mads Bech Sørensen has not spent £7.6m to leave him in a tracksuit, yet nothing in Marseille's fourth-placed league position suggests a defence begging for change.

The familiar faces will ease the landing, for what that is worth. Cristian Carrasco, now a Marseille defensive midfielder, spent 2056 to 2059 at Huesca and will know the corridor where Jonay collects his post. Javier Rial was there even longer, a decade at the club. A compatriot's handshake at the training ground is nice; it does not win you a place ahead of Benítez.

And there is the rub. Marseille sit fourth, ten points off Lyon, level on wins with Nice and Nantes breathing behind them. This is not a club buying for the Under-23s. Jonay arrives with one career goal a season's worth of ambition and a list of people he would rather not see again — Acoidán López, David Arrieta, Leon Altwasser, Rubén, Yenerey — which is hardly the note of a man coming to sit quietly.

He will not sit quietly. Whether he plays is another matter.