One of Pep Guardiola’s incredible achievements since coming to our shores is something that will live on long after he has moved to pastures new.
Anyone who has attempted to play football with any Gen-Z youngsters is fully aware of this legacy. Whereas in the past, teenagers wanted all the glory, grabbing the ball and running for goal, now, it is head up, scan left to right and pass, pass, pass. The result is academy setups crammed full with midfielders, all adept at taking the ball off central defenders and looking for that quick offload, before showing for it again.
In that respect, Kobbie Mainoo’s talents are nothing out of the ordinary.
What makes him perhaps the next generational talent to come out of Manchester United’s academy and the only ray of hope for a brighter future at Old Trafford is that the 18-year-old can pass the ball around with unerring poise like he was playing five-a-side against a football journalist, at Anfield, alongside Sofyan Amrabat.
The writing appeared to be on the wall for United again early into Sunday’s trip to Liverpool as the Jurgen Klopp pressing machine went into overdrive, leaving the visitors’ backline and Mainoo’s midfield partner Amrabat looking like they had seen a ghost.
Andre Onana had to start going long – one more pass into Amrabat with his back to goal and the Moroccan would just fire the ball into his own net.
One pick-out, 10 minutes in, headed Mainoo’s way – just below head height. A flick-on seemed to be the Stockport teenager’s best option, with Wataru Endo breathing down his neck. Instead, without a second’s thought, he welcomed the ball onto his chest, darted back inside, before laying the ball off to Antony.
The sheer audacity, on his third Premier League start, to do that in front of the biggest Anfield crowd in 60 years, was simply extraordinary.
“When you are good enough, you are old enough and he proved that,” Erik ten Hag said after the match.
“When he gets used more often in those games, he will get even more joy from it. With his skill, with his speed of action he can get such passes, three or four passes in and get switches in and then he’s the player who can really hurt opponents.”
One such pass deserved to cause such damage. With United struggling to create anything of note in attack – they mustered one touch in Liverpool’s penalty area in the first half, their lowest on record in the Premier League – Mainoo took it upon himself to create something out of nothing after the break, setting Alejandro Garnacho through on goal. It was an opportunity the top flight’s most wasteful attack passed up again.
Just as he did after another unfathomable pick-out at Goodison Park two weeks ago, Diogo Dalot came running over and slammed a congratulatory slap on the back on Mainoo’s back, seemingly in awe of a youngster who can produce such wonderous things so early into his career.
Only one player, Luis Diaz, had a better pass completion rate than Mainoo across the 90 minutes at Anfield.
Remember the circumstances: United came to Anfield to take on a resurrected Liverpool on the back of 11 successive home wins, having lost 12 matches already this season, including a 3-0 home defeat to Bournemouth in their previous league outing.
Had Mainoo not picked up an injury in pre-season he would have already become a firm fixture in the first team, such is the excitement surrounding his rise at Carrington.
Ten Hag has been keen to point out that one of the multitude of tasks on the agenda is managing Mainoo’s minutes, to help him avoid becoming the latest burgeoning talent to be swallowed up by the faltering United machine and spat out a broken figure.
As all else around him appears shell-shocked in the field of battle, however, Mainoo’s composure is needed in the here and now. But, just maybe, this is a talent that cannot be suppressed, not even by the train wreck that is modern day Manchester United.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/f8LVRAE
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