Thing about Downing is we know he's not top level, good enough to establish himself as a key player in a top side, good enough to make a real impact on the European and International stage; Ashley Young has the potential to be. I don't agree at all that Downing's midtable level either mind, and he's not been one-dimensional for years now. In fact, I'd say Young's still more of a get to the byline and whip it in type wide player than Downing. Even thinking that I was surprised to see the stat that Young made more crosses per game than Downing last season despite playing a central role. Not that getting it in the box is a bad thing, our wide players do it more than most these days and it's something that we've based a lot of our success on under Sir Alex so quite why it'd be used to criticise Downing is beyond me...
I don't get some of the other criticisms of Downing either, one footed, one dimensional...as if there's one way to play as a winger (or an attacker), one set of attributes that will make you effective and if you fall short in any of these attributes they're not any good. We've seen how effective our very own one-footed, one-dimensional Ecuadorian can be. We've seen a ludicrously one-footed Argentine midget dribble and pass his way past everyone to the top of the football all-time greats. We're seeing another ludicrously one-footed Argentine do the same thing. Or what about Garrincha, a player who'd do the same move 5, 6, 7 times a game and yet defences just couldn't stop it, the same move that would lead to countless World Cup assists, the same move that would lead to 2 assists in a World Cup final and turn the game on its head. David Beckham? Stanley Matthews (?) even?
Downing might be one-footed (he's not) and he might be predictable (little bit) but that alone doesn't mean he can't cause plenty of problems for plenty of teams.
Still, £20m seems bizarre...but then so many fees just seem completely mental anyway.
Awesome
