Hate to trot out the oldest cliche in the book, but I’m going to do it anyway….. He’s like having a new signing.
Delighted he’s back. Some crazily critical posts in this thread, and even a few critical responses to his appearance tonight, but it’s what you come to expect with some internet fans.
Don’t know when he’ll be fully match fit, but he’s a player who has a ton of quality, and he’s returning rested and looking fitter than at any point in the last two years, just at the right time. We now have Rashford, Martial, Antony, Sancho, Garnacho, and Weghorst all fit and competing for three places. That’s excellent news with the huge fixture pile up we have.
In midfield we have Casemiro, Fred, Bruno, Sabitzer and McTominay for the rest of the season, for three spots. It’s pretty solid. A three of Casemiro, Sabitzer and Bruno will run most other teams into the ground. The depth and variation will look a lot better when Eriksen returns to fitness too.
And in defence we have two complete back lines, all playing pretty well right now. Dalot, Varane, Martínez, Shaw, plus AWB, Lindelof, Maguire, Malacia.
We all would’ve liked a couple more quality additions, but the way ETH is coaching, he’s not only brought in some quality players since the summer, but he is also getting massive improvements out of the existing players. I think you could genuinely say that the only player from that pool of 20 I mentioned who hasn’t really kicked on considerably, is McTominay. And even then, with the fixtures we have coming up, we are going to need him fit and playing to his best level.
I know we spent a lot of money in the summer, but the players we brought in have all become such important parts of this functioning team. So I have a lot of hope for Sabitzer as ETH identified him as someone he wanted as far back as the summer. Even Antony, who is the target of a lot of disappointment and abuse from online fans, has been an important part of this team building. He hasn’t sparkled but he helps us control games so much. You notice a difference when he goes off, and not just because you miss his phenomenal work rate. The best part about Sancho returning is that we have another option for that RW role, and we won’t have to run Antony into the ground every week. Whether that’s putting Sancho as a RW or moving Bruno out wide and playing Sancho as a 10, doesn’t really matter. It just gives us high quality options.