I posted an article before the season where I think I said something like 'I don't see what Young will bring to the team, he's been average when I've seen him and £17M is too much.' Boy is my face red. He really wasn't anything special when I saw him play for Villa or England but maybe playing with better players has helped him. Plus he's now starting for England regularly (well, in the few games since his move) which must have helped his confidence. His link up play with Rooney is excellent, his crossing is even better than I thought and he's a more intelligent player than I gave him credit for. We're only 4 games in so I won't get too carried away - but yeah, I was wrong, he's actually quite good.
I can help you with that. See most people in general tend to look at a name, see what he has won and judge them anyway. Even if they have never seen them play. Ashley Young has always been a very good, consistant player who if he got his chance at a top team, to play with top players, he would inevitably shine. Which we will see this season.
Fair enough - but you'll also find people start ****ing like monkeys over any young English player who comes through whether they've won anything or not. Like Rodwell for instance - hyped up by the media and yeah he has been pretty ok everytime I've seen him - but I won't be convinced by him until he plays regularly and well. If he wins an FA Cup with Everton that wouldn't change my opinion. So with Young it wasn't lack of trophies, I just wasn't convinced by what I'd seen of him. Admittedly I don't watch Villa week in week out, I just catch their highlights. Sometimes he looked awsome, sometimes very limited. And any hype from the papers I tend to take with a pinch of salt. I'll happily admit it looks like I was wrong - but you can't really judge someone's suitability for a bigger team until they've gone and done it, unless they're truly outstanding. Like I said, I still don't consider Young to be truly outstanding, but he's exactly what we needed by the looks of it and has more to his game than I gave him credit for.
I'm in the same boat as Rossi, thought he was slightly overhyped at Villa but I can now see he is more capable than I thought he was.
Touché, ****tard. 'Rooney dosen't look out of place when you bring up the likes of ronaldo and messi' - i'm sure we will all thank you if Rooney's recent good form continues since you gave this confidence boost.
I've always rated Ashley Young, ever since his Watford days where he was so far ahead of the rest of their side (not that that's difficult).
I had my doubts about his ability to step up.I had him down as a bit of a flat track bully as often he didnt perform against the better sides.This may well turn out to be the case still, as he hasnt come up against a top team as yet for us, considering the shambles of an Arsenal side we faced but he has done very well so far and I haver been impressed with his link up play and general cohesion into the side.The real test will be against Chelsea and the upcoming CL fixtures.I cant see it being a problem for AY though and am delighted with how he has started his United career.
Actually I thought he'd do pretty well at Utd - with the quality of fullbacks and strikers we possess all we really needed was a left sided player to occupy the full back and get the ball across the box on a regular basis. Basically doing what Nani does but from the opposite side. I thought we missed someone like that more than a CM when playing away from home last year. I'm quite happy with him being a bit of a flat track bully. Ultimately, there are only three or four sides in the PL that we can't bully at least a fair amount given the quality of our players. So that's 24 points on offer from the quality teams, and 90 points on offer from the poorer teams. So which of those groups is more important if we're looking to win the PL? I doubt he'll be as effective against sides like Barca, Real and City. But then as long as he can occupy his full back, cover in defence, and put some decent balls and set pieces in I'd be happy - those types of games generally aren't decided by the wingers.
Fair enough . I personally thought he would improve the squad but not the starting XI. Having both Nani and Young playing really well on opposite flanks is the reason we're obliterating teams at the moment. IMO.
