I seem to have a much more positive outlook about him than many here. I think we were right to spend big on him. I think his first season was really promising for an 18/19 year old in his first season in the PL and for a club of our stature. Second season syndrome last year as well, to be honest, as suffering along with the rest of the team until Carrick took over. But overall not a bad start if you have the appropriate amount of patience for a very talented 18-year-old.
What he has is a rare combination of raw materials. Long legs, pace, a long stride and flexibility allow him to be a brilliant 1-on-1 and recovery tackler (think Wan Bissaka). Good touch, composure and strength on the ball make him good at playing out of pressure. Ambition and a good eye for a pass give him the tools for a good creative passing game, increasingly a requirement for a CB at a top European club. I especially like the snap he was putting in those passes, trusting the players ahead of him to have the quality to receive the ball at pace. He can be aggressive in the tackle but also has shown when in form he knows how to time it.
Weaknesses are all things that can certainly be worked on at his age, and probably you wouldn't expect a CB to really start to be 'finished' learning until their mid 20s. That's 1) upper body strength to compete in the box, jockey to win headers, and duel when a CF backs into you. His body still looks fairly adolescent to me, and with a professional strength and conditioning regime it will come, we just have to be patient. 2) Defensive positioning. Amorim's system has probably disrupted his development here, but now he can crack on in a simple 4-at-the-back and hopefully spend the next couple of years getting to grips with it. 3) Confidence, decisiveness, mental strength to overcome setbacks. This is the one element that could be a risk, in my eyes. He may have it, he may not. He's certainly in the right place to build this, with players like Maguire and Martinez as ideal mentors, and an 'arm around the shoulder' type boss in Carrick.
I'm very confident that within a season or two he'll be a mainstay and we'll be happy we signed him. Of course, then it'll be a question of whether we've been successful enough in those seasons to keep him when the likes of Madrid or Bayern come calling.
The only serious risk, for me, would be if Carrick plays him out of position at RB. For me, he's entirely unsuitable for the position, and it will disrupt his development at a crucial phase. A pre-season game or two just for the sake of getting minutes in his legs is obviously fine. But in general especially with Martinez unreliable, De Ligt unreliable and Maguire likely to only be useful for a season or two more, it would seem mad not to commit him entirely to the CB position.
