The thing with Mendy is that I believe his upside is so high. He's very intelligent in terms of movement, pressing, positioning, and picking out passes/crosses. His left foot is great. He's very athletic. He's a far better defender than he gets credit for. I honestly think that a fully fit Mendy with a few games under his belt could be as effective as Cancelo currently is albeit in his own way. Because of all of this, I'm willing to give him as long as the club gives him before writing him off.For his first game for a while not bad.
I did find it funny how often he was basically like a striker attacking the box, you can tell he wasn't told to just play a wide role like he has in the past. He has to learn the midfield role as well, and you know, he's not so bad.
If he could continue this there is definitely a good player there to keep, the problem is I'm always thinking about when he will get his next injury.
For his first game for a while not bad.
I did find it funny how often he was basically like a striker attacking the box, you can tell he wasn't told to just play a wide role like he has in the past. He has to learn the midfield role as well, and you know, he's not so bad.
If he could continue this there is definitely a good player there to keep, the problem is I'm always thinking about when he will get his next injury.
The thing with Mendy is that I believe his upside is so high. He's very intelligent in terms of movement, pressing, positioning, and picking out passes/crosses. His left foot is great. He's very athletic. He's a far better defender than he gets credit for. I honestly think that a fully fit Mendy with a few games under his belt could be as effective as Cancelo currently is albeit in his own way. Because of all of this, I'm willing to give him as long as the club gives him before writing him off.
But he's in an eternal cycle. Comes back, looks ok. Clearly not up to speed. Normally spends a small number of games focusing on defending. Then he starts to look good all of a sudden, like the old Mendy. Then he has a bad game and gets injured and that's the last we see of him for at least 2 months.
It's hard to ever be too optimistic with the guy. He could have an excellent month for us and then he falls over trying to head it back to the keeper, costing us the game and then he pulls his hamstring in the process of it all and that's it until next season.
But maybe it's finally time to have hope again. Until the next time we're having this conversation at least.
Great point.While I think he was a bad signing and isn't particularly suited to our current possession based narrow fullbacks game, if the rumours are true and we get a striker like Halaand or Lukaku in the summer then Mendy has to stay, far and away our best fullback at getting the ball in the box. If someone's getting on the end of his crosses his confidence will grow as will his value to the team, and just maybe he can prove me and 98% of our fan base wrong.