The Mainoo Problem
Mainoo's value sits in receiving under pressure and turning out of it, the connector function Amorim's pivot partner for Bruno is not being asked to provide.
What’s all the fuss about?
To base an entire footballing project, as they call them now, on one player, no matter how good or great, is a highly romantic and a highly unrealistic notion; projects these days are comprehensive endeavours involving everything from tactial vision, recruitment, fitness and nutrition.
No room for old-school romanticism there.
And yet, if the project your club is building does not find ample space nor an adequate role for the best player your academy has produced in almost a decade - in other words, a player like Kobbie Mainoo - what does it say about that project?
Kobbie Mainoo has been dealt a bad card and is now left holding it, while the game moves on. He is not an Amorim midfielder, in the sense of what Amorim himself says he wants in a midfielder at United.