Often when a player is shoved from pillar to post and utilised in a wide variety of positions, it is because his manager simply cannot fathom how best to make the most of the talent at his disposal.
Paul Pogba is the prime example of this, as six years into his Manchester United “homecoming” we still don’t know if he is best deployed on the left of an attacking midfield three, as a holding, quarterback-type midfielder, or as a No 10. All too often he has given a reason to change things up.
This is not the case for Phil Foden. The midfielder-cum-false nine has such limitless ability it is difficult to label him as this or that. He just has that Midas touch with a football at his feet. A master of all trades.
At Elland Road on Saturday, having played much of the season on both wings or as a false nine, Foden picked up two assists and had a hand in another goal in Manchester City’s crucial victory from the No 10 position – a role he seemed destined to fulfil from a young age; the perfect heir to David Silva’s throne.
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Some have chastised Guardiola for such an approach, especially in the early days when he barely used the generational talent, but as is often the case, the crazy Catalan knows best.
When Guardiola time and again chooses to tell Foden how he can improve, it is not a criticism, it is because he knows the astronomical potential the Stockport Iniesta has. Game recognises game.
And Foden has no qualms about listening to a man who knows a thing or two about nurturing the very best.
“He can play in five positions up front, on either wing, striker, in pockets as an attacking midfielder, all of them,” Guardiola stated, glowingly, on Saturday after Foden’s impressive display at Leeds. “With time he can play in more positions centrally. Sometimes there has to be some pausa. Right now, he’s best suited out on the wings.
“When I started watching him he was an attacking midfielder and he was so, so good, but all his actions are so quick, and if you remember David Silva, he could slow the rhythm to increase the rhythm, but his rhythm is always so high, which is good because it is so aggressive, but sometimes he just needs that bit of [taking] a moment. But that is just a question of time. He can do it, no problem.”
Pausa is important to Guardiola – taking that extra few seconds, letting the game pass by a moment longer so as to create additional space. It is not something that comes into the vernacular of most English players, but most English players aren’t Phil Foden.
Guardiola sees a bright future for Foden, where he knows his little, public challenges – often unprompted – will have the desired effect.
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