I thought he was great. Just about the perfect balance between getting the simple things right and playing with flair. Just seemed so much sharper and more focussed than he was at the weekend. I liked the way he went straight to Carrick when he was subbed off. Must be some truth in the pep talk rumours. Now listen and learn, Paul. He knows what he’s talking about!
Something actually stuck out to me today and it’s not a point I’ve seen raised about him before but I think might be quite pertinent.
He looked like he wanted to stay busy, he was trying to press and you could tell he was concentrating hard on doing the right thing, covering the right space and tracking the right players but quite frankly he kept getting it wrong and it just looked completely unnatural to him. He just looked a bit lost when we didn’t have the ball.
I’ve been thinking about it since the game and I think people need to give him a bit of a break. I think people seem to believe he’s been slacking on that side of his game because he’s a bit lazy and only likes doing the fun bits but I think there might be more to it than that. It genuinely just does not come naturally to him which seems crazy when everything else does.
I mean, basically he is just a playmaker, a number 10 who likes to play from deep. At Juve he had some of the finest tactical midfielders you could hope for playing alongside him and he was allowed to play to his strengths.
Tl:dr: Hes not lazy, he’s just genuinely not a very natural defensively. I guess we need to decide if he’s good enough to accommodate in the role he likes or if we would be better off cashing in and getting a more rounded, better fit even if it’s an inferior player.