Weirdly, The Athletic is trying to create a Narrative about the Palhinha/Bentancur pivot not working The fact they don't have Kulusevski or Maddison as an outlet is the problem, not the personnel
As a squad option, I’m fine with him. But to progress, he’s like Vicario, Maddison, Solanke and Richarlison and shouldn’t be a regular starter as lacks the consistency to be a top player.
I think he has it, he’s just not recovered it yet. He and Kulu were instrumental in getting 4th under Conte and then he would’ve probably won our POTY if he didn’t pick up that ACL in the following season. We’ve seen flashes of that form, just need it to be more prolonged, I think it’ll return though. Just probably needed/ needs more time than I initially thought. I like all four of our main CMs in general to be fair though, don’t really have any issues with what pairing Frank goes with at the moment, albeit Palhinha has probably pushed himself to the top of the list but him, Bergvall, Sarr and Bentancur are a very decent bunch to choose from with Gray and Bissouma in reserve. I just hope we see a pivot of two of them behind Xavi soon instead playing a three man midfield, I wasn’t overly keen on Xavi’s signing as I’m concerned with many Bundesliga attacking mids/ forwards stat padding over there and then struggling here but if we’re to potentially see the best of Xavi it has to be in the 10, not LW.
If the issue was fear of re-injury due to Usain sprints or bad tackles, I could live with that ... IF for all the game time the above is not likely, he was driving the attack forward or splitting busparquet with incisive passing. As we have not been seeing that, then he becomes a on-pitch luxury.
You may be right, but time is not on his side and unfortunately at this level, he cannot be a passenger - which sadly he is in most recent performances. I agree we have seen an occasional flash of the player that he was pre-acl, but they are few and far between, and no sign of continuous improvement. As King indicated, there are 4 or 5 players, including Bentancur, who should not be considered first choice starters at the moment.
