Gary Neville agreed that Aaron Wan-Bissaka is “not good enough on the ball” but praised him for his excellent assist in Manchester United’s 2-0 League Cup win over Burnley on Wednesday.
The right-back was handed his first start under Erik ten Hag amid Diogo Dalot’s injury-enforced absence. He put in a decent shift and grabbed a terrific assist for Chrsitian Eriksen’s opener on 27 minutes.
Wan-Bissaka wasn’t pitch perfect and looked a bit ragged at points and was replaced on 73 minutes. However, he ended the game with a clean sheet and put in a display that exceeded the performances put in during this month’s friendlies with Real Betis and Cadiz.
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Speaking on Sky Sports, Neville concurred with the commonly held view that Wan-Bissaka's on-the-ball abilities are not up to United standard but praised him for his role in the opener. He said: “Look he’s been criticised for the last… The price tag was big, his defensive work’s pretty solid.
“But on the ball there’s massive expectations of what is needed from a modern full-back and it’s quite often suggested that he is not good enough on the ball, and I’ll probably go along with that, but that was absolutely brilliant what he did there.
"Wan-Bissaka, sometimes when you see full-backs in this day and age go up into that final third they go a little bit wider. He came narrow which helped him but he’s still at full stretch there. To get that ball across like he did, it’s a brilliant delivery, and he makes it easy for Eriksen."
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