THE SPECIAL WAN!
AARON WAN-BISSAKA on his love of tackling… and how his United team-mates can’t get the better of him in training
AARON WAN-BISSAKA EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
AARON Wan-Bissaka is scrolling through his phone and bursts out laughing.
He is going through the huge archive of Instagram posts that have been created in recognition of his impressive defending.
One of many that caught his attention and made him chuckle asked what Wan-Bissaka’s opponents see when they look at him. The accompanying picture is a brick wall.
Another has pictures of the contents of the Manchester United right back’s pockets after a game — keys, phone, wallet and a winger. The inference is clear. There is no escaping Wan-Bissaka.
‘My friends send them all to me,’ the 22-year-old smiles. ‘There are too many. I laugh. Literally laugh my head off.’
Earlier this season, a video also emerged following United’s 1-1 draw at Southampton of an emotional elderly fan almost brought to tears, so happy that his club now have a right back of Wan-Bissaka’s quality.
‘I saw it after that game,’ he said. ‘From nobody knowing who I am to him reacting like that now, it means a lot. It shows how people look at me and look up to me. I make them smile when they come and watch me play.’
Wan-Bissaka is not the type to let such things go to his head. It all just provides a little light relief and humour in the high- pressure, relentless world of life as a young Manchester United player.
The jokes, though, stem from something very serious and real. Wan-Bissaka is quite simply an exceptional defender.
Sportsmail columnist Martin keown labelled him ‘ the best one-against- one defender in the Premier League’ and added: ‘Some people thought I was good and I think this guy is ahead of me.’ Some praise given the high standards keown set during his playing days. Former United favourite Darren Fletcher revealed: ‘I was talking to some United players and they said that no player has managed to go past Wan-Bissaka in training this season.’
Is that really true? ‘I would say so, yeah, from what I can remember,’ Wan-Bissaka says. ‘I can see the frustration but I can also see that they are not giving up. They still want to keep trying until they do (get past) and that’s the thing that gets me going, team-mates testing me. It helps me.’
Some of Wan-Bissaka’s opponents don’t even do that.
‘There have been times, I can tell, when players are frustrated going down that (left) side and they just stop,’ Wan-Bissaka says.
‘That makes me aware of my ability. I’ve had players joke around and say, “Any chance they can get down (my side)?”’
Raheem Sterling will know how they feel, having come off secondbest against Wan-Bissaka in this month’s Manchester derby.
Their head-to-head was one of the most absorbing full back versus winger battles that will be seen in the Premier League this season and resulted in one of Wan-Bissaka’s best performances.
Sterling might have been optimistic of winning it after accelerating past his opposite number early on at the Etihad.
‘You have to allow it once so you know next time how to position yourself,’ Wan-Bissaka explains.
‘That time when he went to the byline I started in line with him. The next time I started behind him so when he kicked it past I had time to recover.’
After that, Wan-Bissaka’s determination not to get beaten again only grew. ‘It’s not a good feeling, them going past you,’ he continues.
‘I knew it was going to be a long game. He is one of the best wingers in the Premier League and I knew I had to step up my game.
‘It’s a good feeling (doing well against Sterling), especially a player with his ability. It took real concentration because he can go in or out and has got pace.
‘He’s probably faster than me so that was a game I had to really focus on.
‘Was that the toughest battle of my career? Yes, but since my debut with Crystal Palace (in February last year against Tottenham) no winger is going to be easy. It’s going to be a challenge every game. They’re only going to get harder the better players you come up against.’
WAN-BISSAkA is shy and softlyspoken. Get him talking about stopping opponents, though, and he really comes to life.
He might be every inch the modern footballer but is old-school in his approach to the art of defending.
In a football world that has become increasingly obsessed with how centre backs ‘play out’ and full backs’ totals for assists, Wan-Bissaka’s philosophy is simple. ‘I don’t like anything going past me,’ he says. ‘Anything. And I like to keep it that way.
‘When the game kicks off my first thing is to get two tackles in. Tackle them twice (before they get going) because I think that will kind of rattle them or make them think this is going to be a long game. If someone was to (get past me) it’s the worst feeling. That gives them confidence to come and do it again and keep doing it.
‘It doesn’t bother me much, how people look at defending now. I just focus on my game and how I can help the team in any situation. Firstly, defend for the team. That’s what I put my mind on.’
Wan-Bissaka’s effectiveness and hearing how much he thinks like a traditional defender — taking such pride in the basics of his job and describing a successful tackle as ‘close to the best feeling’ — is all the more notable given he has only been one for around three years and was never formally taught how to tackle.
His story is now well told but worth quickly recounting. He joined Palace aged 11 as a striker idolising Thierry Henry, was then moved to the right wing before being deployed as an emergency right back in a late-2017 training session and managing to frustrate team-mate Wilfried Zaha.
The conversion process, set off by a hunch among his Under 23 coaches, accelerated after that. Since impressing at right back in his first three senior Palace appearances — against Tottenham, United and Chelsea — Wan-Bissaka has not looked back.
‘It has gone so quick, such a short space of time, but I’m happy with the chance I was given in that position,’ he says. ‘I don’t regret it. But the change hasn’t been massive to me. I always had that defensive mindset when I was an attacker. I used to love tackling as well. When I played right wing, left wingers would beat the right back and I’d be recovering and getting the tackles in. That’s where it started.
‘Because I’ve been in a winger’s position I know how to think at times. Where you see space down the line you take it. That’s what I like to give them. A little gap and show them the outside so they think they can kick it and run.
‘But little do they know, it’s not going to happen.
‘The tackling, it is just concentration really. You have to time it well, not dive in, because it can go wrong and if it does, it’s bad. I go off them and try to prevent the ball from going inside.’
THE QUALITIES he already had earned him his £50million summer
‘Sterling’s faster than me — that’s a game I had to really focus on’
move to Old trafford. Now he is there, the different demands will help him develop the other side of his game.
‘United have more of the ball, I’ll be getting more of the ball (than at Palace), so on the ball will have to change, improve,’ he admits.
‘Joining in the counter-attacks, because we have a lot of them, overlapping more, things like that. that’s why I came to this team — because I thought they could improve me as a player.’
Already, though, United’s sizeable outlay has proved to be money well spent. He admitted things were a ‘ bit shaky’ at the start outside the training ground as he adjusted to being away from the life he had known for so long in south London for the first time. All is well now, though.
‘Everyone comes up, sometimes I go down but they come up mostly,’ he says. ‘ I’m just surrounded by support, friends and family, that’s all I need to keep me going.’
On the pitch, Wan-Bissaka has looked totally at ease playing for one of the world’s biggest clubs in just his second full season at senior level, having won his first England call-up in August before being forced to pull out of the squad with a back injury.
the ease of adaptation has not surprised those who know him best. they describe Wan-Bissaka as someone who is not fazed by anything and possesses an ability not to overthink things, allowing him to take any of the challenges football throws at him in his stride. When having to adapt quickly to a new position, the Premier League and then United, they are ideal character traits to have.
His older brother Kevin believes Wan-Bissaka’s fearlessness stems from the days when he used to play and had to prove himself against older kids in kickabouts on Walton Green, the park near the house they grew up in in New Addington, Croydon.
He possesses that same unruffled persona as a professional.
‘that’s just how I go into games,’ he says. ‘Just calm. It’s always been like that. I don’t think it’s a choice. It is just how I am.
‘Even before I joined United, in my debut against tottenham, you have doubters. there are always doubters, thinking you are playing against this front three or that front three.
‘You look at the players and think it could go two ways, left or right, but if you have confidence or belief in yourself you can chose which way it goes.’
Wan-Bissaka has the same faith in the United project under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, which is why he didn’t hesitate to join the club during this period of transition.
It was underlined by the moraleboosting few days at the start of this month, in which he shone as both tottenham and Manchester City were beaten.
‘that was only just the start,’ he said. ‘It shows what we are actually capable of.
‘Obviously I know because we see it in training and it was only a matter of time. We’ve started now so we push on from there.’