- Joined
- Dec 30, 2017
- Messages
- 38
The notion that he's a scape goat is somewhat absurd.
Look, Mkhi is the player I expected to have an instant positive impact due to his age and experience. I figured Pogba would be a mint signing, but would have his ups and downs due to his age and fee, while I expected Zlatan to struggle more adapting to the pace and defenders in the league.
I said it at the start of the season, Mkhi isn't playing well but his stats are mint (which they were), but sooner rather than later his stats will either reflect the way he's actually playing and we'll have a problem, or he'll gradually improve.....People were too focused on his stats, more assist than Coutinho's best season at Liverpool etc etc. Too focused on the assist stats, and not bothering to think about how the player is actually performing and the consequence for the rest of the team.
Yesterday was another example, he'd pull off something utter mint, like what looks like an easy body feint and get into a brilliant position only to just lob the ball straight to a Southampton player. All the time in the world to put in a cross, ends up a mile away from the closest United player. So boo hoo he starts on the left, but here's the counter attacking genius player who is played on by Rashford where we have a mint chance to punish Southampton on the counter, and he floats in one of the worst crosses I've ever seen..Yet, he ends up delivering one great cross which Lingard should've scored from. For me, I'd prefer better deliveries on all his other crosses, especially from that counter attack which Rashford started.
The whole argument boils down to how much of the individuals performance is related to the system, tactics and strategy implemented by the manager.
For example, if a player at Man City fails to perform, you can comfortably say that most of that is down to the individual because the system, tactics and strategy work.
At United, the system DOES NOT work. In fact, I believe that there isn't any guidance provided by the manager when it comes to attacking. Because of this, players are struggling to perform. The cumulative effect of this is that players feel the pressure to perform and then start second guessing themselves. They stop playing on instinct. They take extra touches. They don't play quick enough. They start doing what is safe etc etc.
If a player plays poorly at United, you can attribute at least half the responsibility of that to the system and hence the manager. We did it when LVG played the slow, blunt and purposeless football. Di Maria said to himself, forget this crap, I'm off. We made Di Maria look like how Mkhi looks now BECAUSE of the system, strategy and tactics of the manager.
Mkhi is a top quality player. You cannot dispute that. When it comes to Lingard, Martial and Rashford, you can dispute their quality.