A few things:
- The 'super up' he had in the first third of the season gradually diminished towards a more recognisible mean. It's very poor form indeed to pretend like he wasn't doing something worthy of comic books initially. What we see now is not what was seen initially and the fact it could not be sustained is one of a few reasons why Di Stefano and the like are who they are and have the standing they do - what was normal for them is a period of peak, purple patch football for others, or something entirely unobtainable even for a few games let alone 25ish.
- He is 20-years old. He is clearly learning on the job, as one might expect of such a young player.
- City's swarm is so... good that it appears... unnatural... enough to raise suspicions that it's not just fitness offering them absurd propulsion.
- He did an interview with TNT after the game where he stated that the brief and training for this game revolved around a lot of defensive work and working back from much, much deeper on the field as defensive entities first and foremost. He stated it was then considerably harder to contribute offensively because the defensive shape was the priority and he found it exhausting trying to do both jobs due to sitting nominally deeper than usual.
- I thought it was clear that one of his big tasks on this occasion was to be the conduit for everyone else to get up the pitch beyond him as he held on to the ball for inordinately longer periods of time than usual. A literal component of the way the team had been asked to play.
I don't think he had good game in terms of being a billed superstar, but within the remit he was asked to perform, where positioning, defending and holding up the ball were priorities, I'm sure the manager and his teammates gave him praise and were thankful for his contribution. If we look at it from that perspective, he was at least a 6 out there today in a game played out in a manner I don't think I've ever seen from Madrid - I didn't even know they were capable of such defensive astuteness, and I'm sure that is the case for the majority. Within that framing, he was still more good than bad even if wasn't his best performance.