I think the team has done a good job of hiding his flaws thus far this year - it feels as though we have greatly reduced the amount of transition opportunities that teams have against us, which is where his fairly large drop-off in athleticism is most exposed. He's certainly still very good at receiving the ball and beating the press, a skill not many players are as good at across football. However, I still have major concerns with him and it feels like he always makes a few mistakes with the weight on his passes that put us into real danger. The simple passes are where he struggles the most in my mind and usually those are the ones he's playing when we are playing out of our own box or in the half spaces ahead of it. He doesn't seem to have great chemistry with White- whenever they are combining, it seems like one of them leaves a pass short and then the opposing press is pouncing on it.
As a backup, I have no issues with him but if we are counting on him to be the 6 for all of our big games this year, I feel like that is really playing with fire. Adding in Timber (especially in lieu of Zinchenko) has added some good cover to his lack of recovery speed but I still feel like he makes bad gambles when a team is breaking and then is often behind the play in recovery. My hope is that by the end of 2024, we have a solidified group of Odegaard, Merino and Rice in the midfield with rotation options in Jorginho and Partey to save their legs and avoid Partey having to play in big UCL games where transitions are unavoidable. He's no Casemiro but I've lost hope in him regaining any of the athleticism that made him elite previously. I just hope he can tighten up his passing with more games under his belt.
