Actually Young was increasingly frustrating in attack, but defensively our most solid back option by far last year. Even in his worst games, his defensive positioning and salvaging runs were better than Shaw’s, and his one-on-one defending almost at Shaw’s level. He became a defensive liability in increasingly losing the ball in dangerous phases though.
I’d still say, defensively, the crux of Freds/Matic’s inability to cover for Pogba’s and Martial’s inadequacies was a lot more harmful, and also lack of confidence/discipline in the team as a whole, including De Gea.
We lack the level of CB’s able to fix everything when the rest faltered, like prime Ferdinand/Vidic might have done, but IMO even they would have been made to look bad in last years set up (barring that December-February spell).
