MadDogg
Full Member
Up until February or so he only tended to play well in the spoiler role against top teams. When he played against lower teams he rarely provided much at all. I'll put my hand up and say that I didn't think he was ultimately going to be good enough to even be a squad player for us as the only time he was actually useful was against top teams where we needed to out-work and out-muscle them in the middle of the park (admittedly he was often very good in that very specific role). Pretty much everyone who had watched him regularly in the youth teams were saying the same as well.Dont get how he was so underrated. He had brilliant performances against Pool and Chelsea and after that I was all about the hype train. I expected that to be the norm - go overboard with hope for one of our own academy products. Instead it's taken two more seasons to even consider that he might be talented. So weird.
That all started to change in the last few months of last season as his on-the-ball ability just improved out of sight. His passing ability, his vision to see the options, his touches on the ball, his dribbling - it's like a completely different player. I don't know if it has something to do with Ole coming in, Carrick maybe taking him under his wing, him deciding to be more dominant, or him just naturally growing as a player as he matures. But whatever it was it's obviously worked, and he's now quite firmly cemented himself as first choice alongside Pogba.