I do think as fans we’ve somehow become a little obsessed with what a player’s weaknesses are and sometimes allow that to cloud our judgment a little too much. I’ve been watching a player over the last few weeks who looks like he could be elite. He seems to be able to step into games when other players would just settle into being a passenger, he consistently wants the ball and he tries (quite successfully) to make things happen. I’m not bothered about his athleticism, I think this obsession with midfielders being able to snuff counter attacks out is bizarre when you have elite athletes ahead of them and behind them, if you’re compact the spaces shouldn’t be too big to regularly be exposed. My only complaint with him (and you could shelve this at quite a lot of our offensive players) is his decision making, his final ball can be outrageous, yet he shoots an awful lot, some of them are really sloppy as well, like trying to finesse one with his right foot from 25+ yards with defenders blocking most of the goal. He’s at his best when he engages defenders, when he takes a poor shot on he’s giving them a free pass. I do wonder how much of this is under instruction as so many of our frustrating halves this season have been halves where we’ve wasted a lot of phases shooting too early from poor positions.
