An ode to Nene at PSG and his ‘right man, wrong time’ act at West Ham

Nene wasn’t exactly a big success during his short spell in the Premier League with West Ham, but having seen the Brazilian at Paris Saint-Germain it’s hard not to wish he’d arrived sooner and stayed longer.

Back in August 2011, Paris Saint-Germain positioned themselves as the next superclub-in-waiting.

Flush with Qatari money, the Ligue 1 title contenders spent more than €75million on a hatful of new signings, including club-record buy Javier Pastore.

There was hope that the new arrivals would help the club bludgeon their way to a first domestic title since 1994, but instead an unheralded Montpelier side lifted the title, inspired by Younes Belhanda, Olivier Giroud and, oddly, John Utaka, with Antoine Kombouare dismissed and replaced mid-season at PSG by Carlo Ancelotti.

The goalscoring charts didn’t exactly pan out as expected, either. Pastore may have delivered, recording the best goals tally of his PSG career to date, but fellow attacking recruits fell short of one man about whom much less of a fuss was made.

Nene had top-scored for PSG in his first season, 2010-11, but many expected him to be sidelined by the new arrivals.

Certainly, few would have predicted him to lead the title challenge with 21 league goals including several braces and a hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Rennes.

Watching Nene play, you wouldn’t expect him to be known for his stats, and it almost feels accidental that he found the net so frequently during his time in Paris.

He was a proper Brazilian No.10, possessing a left foot that redefined the word ‘deft’. Watching him play in Paris was like watching Alvaro Recoba borrowing Diego Forlan’s magic goalscoring boots.

Already the wrong side of 30 by the time he left Paris in 2013, Nene almost vanished as