Jericholyte2
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Has been discussed in the Player Performance thread but felt worthy of its own thread.
For me this is an incredibly sad story of a good player who was promoted above his talent after his sparkling start with United. The state of the club at the time meant they needed (ideally an academy graduate) to hang their hat on and he came along at the perfect time for them. In more stable times he would have had his breakout, calmed down, and then be loaned out for a year or two to develop further and come back a more rounded player.
But the club needed him so he stayed. Many of us throughout the time questioned the sporadic nature of his form, asking if he really was the next big thing or a flash in the proverbial pan (remember the Rashford vs Mbappe debates?). I feel, defending him, that he has been hugely let down by the last manager. In various acts of desperation he was called upon for ridiculous amounts of football whilst injured. However I do also believe that he has to take a fair share of personal responsibility here. Yes he's been injured, yes he'd been played in to the ground, but that doesn't excuse the regularity with which his people go to the media to whinge and moan about all sorts of issues.
The tweet above is just the latest example of the issues with modern players, who potentially believe they're better than they actually are. He's scored 5 goals so far this season, he doesn't press or race back to defend like his manager wants, so what does he do when the manager drops him? Does he look internally and ask what he needs to do to get back in the team, does he change attitude or style of play, or work harder to make the point to the manager when he comes on as a 65th minute sub? NO! He starts walking around the pitch with his hands on his hips after 10mins, then runs to the press talking about how he might need to go somewhere he's guaranteed first team football!
I think it's another example of the thin skin attitude which is the true cancer within our dressing room. What are your thoughts?