Special Wan upping his attacking game
ANYBODY watching United closely in recent months would have noticed an improvement in the attacking game of Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
The £45m full-back has been faultless defensively but as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted this season, his contribution in the final third has remained a work in the progress.
Wan-Bissaka looked to lack confidence when he crossed the halfway line earlier in his first season at Old Trafford.
While he was a brilliant defensive full-back he didn’t yet have the attacking quality that every United full-back needs, which was a surprise given he used to play on the wing until fairly late in his development at Crystal Palace.
But in Wan-Bissaka’s last 11 games, beginning with the 4-0 win over Norwich
at Old Trafford on January 11, there has been an improvement and the numbers back up what we’ve seen with our own eyes.
That run of games may only have produced one assist, the cross against Chelsea from which Anthony Martial steered his header into the corner, but the attacking numbers in Wan-Bissaka’s game have improved considerably.
It’s become clear that he’s now a more confident dribbler as well.
Against City in the Premier League win at Old Trafford he showed some good skill to dart through on the edge of the box and his average dribbles per 90 minutes are up 5.75, having been at 4.1 until the Norwich game. His touches in the opposition box have risen slightly, from 0.81 to 1.1, but the number of what are considered progressive runs, which are a key part of a full-back’s attacking armoury, have shot up from four per 90 minutes to 3.21. These are standards that need to be kept, with United needing an attacking threat from right-back and left-back if they are to continue progressing to the next level.
While a lot of the development on the attacking side of Wan-Bissaka’s game has come on the training pitches at Carrington, the 22-yearold can continue to try and improve while he’s away from rest of the squad.
In his most recent lockdown diary on the club’s official website, Wan-Bissaka explained how he was going through old games this season to see how the team had developed.
“Part of my plan for coping with all the spare time is watching back our games from this season. “It gives me the chance to look back over what we’ve done and learn from it for when we’re allowed to get back to doing what we love,” he said. “It’s all about looking at the team as a whole. I miss all of them. When you look back at our performances from the early weeks of the season compared to how we were playing in the weeks before lockdown, the improvements are clear to see. You can see how confident we’re getting in front of goal and we’re just getting better as a team.”
If the attacking side of his game continues to improve as it has done in 2020, then United might well have a world-class full-back on their hands.
Part of my plan for coping with all the spare time is watching back our games
Aaron Wan-Bissaka