“If players are good enough,” Manchester United supervisor Erik ten Hag insisted earlier this season, “they are old enough.”
The 18-year-old academy product Kobbie Mainoo gives an ideal instance of this faculty of thought. Mainoo solely made his full Premier League on the finish of November however the teenager has shone as a uncommon brilliant spot in a bleak marketing campaign for the Red Devils.
Manchester United make the ominous trip to Liverpool’s Anfield fortress on Sunday afternoon with the reminiscences of final season’s 7-0 humiliation on the identical floor nonetheless recent.
Here’s how Mainoo’s involvement could assist his facet keep away from one other shellacking.
Mainoo might have performed simply 162 minutes of Premier League soccer in his complete profession – for comparability, seven members of United’s squad have performed greater than 162 matches in the competitors – however he has already confirmed able to dealing with a hostile ambiance on Merseyside.
“Kobbie is so mature, we are confident,” Ten Hag gushed after Mainoo made his debut at Goodison Park which was boiling with indignation in November. In Everton’s first sport after the membership’s ten-point deduction, followers from the blue half of Stanley Park unleashed their pent-up fury upon the visiting crimson shirts.
Yet, Mainoo barely appeared to register the unrelenting wall of boos. With his each go seemingly determined earlier than the ball got here his manner, Mainoo was a relentless choice as United constructed from the again in a 3-0 win.
While United could not obtain one other optimistic end result in opposition to Newcastle United per week later, Mainoo was the identical image of composure in possession, misplacing simply three passes at St James’ Park. In every Premier League sport Mainoo has began for United, {the teenager} has completed the match together with his workforce’s highest go completion fee.
Liverpool will little doubt hound after their guests – particularly in the opening exchanges – however Mainoo’s cool head could set the tone for a United facet which are by no means distant from a skittish outburst.
The final time Manchester United defeated Liverpool at Anfield, Mainoo was nonetheless in major faculty. Experience can swing each methods. For these in the squad who know what to anticipate from an away trip to Liverpool, there can be a way of dread from so many bleak and blundersome video games.
However, there’ll be no haunting shouts of “We want eight!” clouding Mainoo’s desires forward of the sport.
United solely trailed Liverpool by a single objective at half-time of their most up-to-date go to to Anfield but imploded after the break, with the likes of Luke Shaw and Bruno Fernandes in some way avoiding crimson playing cards regardless of dropping all sense of self-discipline. Unlike the extra skilled members of the workforce, Mainoo does not have a chunky again catalogue of chaos to tip him over the sting.
One determine who won’t line up alongside Mainoo at Anfield will be membership captain Fernandes. The fiery Portuguese midfielder is suspended for Sunday’s contest after amassing his fifth yellow card of the season for a usually petulant burst of dissent in opposition to Bournemouth.
While dropping a participant who leads the workforce in assists, probabilities created and photographs (amongst many different statistical classes) isn’t a very good factor, Fernandes’ absence provides Scott McTominay the prospect to bomb ahead extra constructively.
The adventurous Scot is United’s main Premier League scorer this season and has been granted added licence to crash into the opposition field in current weeks, with Ten Hag hailing McTominay’s “smell for when to arrive”. However, McTominay has been cantering ahead whereas beginning in midfield along with Fernandes, who traces up as United’s quantity ten.
This has stretched United’s flaky midfield even thinner. In the current defeat to Chelsea for example, which Mainoo watched from the bench, McTominay took extra photographs than he accomplished ahead passes.
With Mainoo stitching the sport collectively behind McTominay, relatively than Sofyan Amrabat haphazardly scampering round on his personal on the base of midfield, United ought to be slightly safer in the center of the pitch.
Whether Mainoo’s inclusion will be sufficient to interrupt a seven-year drought at Anfield stays to be seen. But the Red Devils ought to at the least emerge from their trip to Merseyside with out one other humiliation added to the pile if Mainoo maintains his robust begin to senior soccer.
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