Park would easily start for us on the right if he's playing in the current squad.
And my point is that he had shown in PSV that he can take up a more attacking role if needed. The only reason he took on a more defensive role with us is because he was up against Rooney, Ronaldo, Giggs and Nani.
Scott wouldn't even be good enough to get 50 appearances for us if he had to compete for a spot in that squad.
That too, of course, but another reason being that he was an exceptionally good tackler for an attacker (maybe due in large part to his world-class spatial awareness, anticipation and workrate - all three probably linked).
If Ronaldo for example has 100 attacking ability and 10 defensive, and Rio has 100 defensive ability and 10 attacking, Nani 85 attacking and 10 defensive and so on. And then someone like Park has 65 attacking ability and 35 defensive ability. He's nowhere near as good as any of the former in their respective strengths, but overall, he's just as good as they are across all phases of play. Maybe I'm selling him short on the 65 attacking, but one gets the idea. (This has also given me a thread idea but that's neither here nor there)
Anyways, I think that's closer to what you meant to say. Not that Park was tasked with a more defensive role JUST because he wasn't as good as those other players in attack. He was a weirdly(?) good defender.
Heck, Ole's last goal for the club came by due to a Park interception, IIRC. Blackburn or Bolton.
Also, I think there was an interview where they said that Park's knee injury had something to do with the role shift as well. But I'm not sure about that one.
Please tell us how would Park improve an already misfiring attack. He was a great system player. Put him in our team and he would look even worse than Lingard.
In our attack pre-Bruno you're probably just about right. Post-Bruno, however, I think Park leapfrogs Lingard and goes ahead by a not inconsiderable distance.
Park was so helpful defensively - either by directly tackling or harrying opponents into bad passes or by positioning himself to cut off everything but low percentage passes - that he allowed every defensive-minded player to always have the upper hand versus their designated markee.
Park + Fred in particular would be pretty decent against especially the big teams. Win the ball back, get it to Bruno, launch counter. Rinse and repeat.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying he'd shine. I'm just saying that post-Bruno, he'd leave Lingard in the dust.
And now back to Scott. Who I think is a great squad player.