England is a strange sort of place – when it comes to football at least.
It’s the kind of country where a player looks to have had a good game two weeks in a row on the four-minute Match of the Day packages and he’s automatically talked back into the international reckoning.
All of Ben Foster’s wobbles and consistently inconsistent performances are forgotten if he’s captured making a few saves for the highlights show.
If Aaron Cresswell is recorded blocking an effort after winning a game the week before, there’s simply no way the national team can keep ignoring him.
A teenager who makes a number of substitute appearances has World Cup pressure lumped on his shoulders before he has a cap and even Tom Cleverley, if he scores a goal or two, will be discussed in a recall conversation – safe enough with that stipulation, mind.
Even on Sunday, Jack Wilshere was making his customary substitute appearance and the commentary mentioned the fact that he was doing it in front of the England manager.
For some reason though, this hype and those knee-jerks have always evaded Ashley Young.
In an era when the likes of Kieran Trippier, Harry Maguire, Joe Gomez and Michael Keane are fast-tracked to the international setup, it seems scandalous that Ashley Young wasn’t even given lip service for over three years.
At the age of 32, the Englishman is playing some of the best football of his life, including the glory years at Villa when Martin O’Neill called him world class and including the period when he burst onto the Old Trafford scene for Alex Ferguson’s last two seasons and helped United to their 20th Premier League title.
Just like Valencia before him, Young has made the move to full back but he is no longer a stand-in or a utility man, he’s the best left back at Manchester United. He’s better than Blind and Rojo and Darmian out there and he’s better than Luke Shaw – a man who’ll need just two passages of play shown up on Match of the Day to work his way back into England talk.
Young finally got his return to the international fold under Gareth Southgate but he’s still behind Danny Rose and Ryan Bertrand in the pecking order despite proving this season that he’s not just one of the best in the league or the outstanding choice for United, but he could be a serious operator for his country too.
On Saturday, in one of those classic litmus tests of not only a player’s skill and nerve, but of his character, Ashley Young stood up to the plate and he led Manchester United out of the mires of what would’ve been another disaster.
Anthony Knockaert is a lively winger for Brighton and the one who looked most capable of producing something from nothing – which was, frankly, what the visitors needed – but Young marshalled him all day long to such a pedantic extent where you felt like interrupting and asking the United defender to just let the boy play.
He didn’t dive in, he didn’t go for the highlights reel tackle, he just played with head and athleticism and completely stifled his opposite number. Sometimes it meant nicking the ball away, a lot of times it was from clever interceptions that immediately started attacks but, most of the time, it was just cutting off his options, closing down channels and forcing an attacking player who wanted the knockout blow into submission.
Going forward, he’s back to his best.
He’s right-footed but he’ll go to the line all day, he’ll play off his left or he’ll cut back sharper than you’d care to think of. His in-swinging crosses are some of the deadliest in the league and his quick feet are back along with his invention and adventure. He’s drawing opponents, he’s beating men, he’s breaking into the box and he’s causing chaos.
He’s doing it from left back and he’s doing it every week.
For whatever reason, Ashley Young was written off somewhere along the way as a bit-part player and it meant that his special moments – his Match of the Day moments – were overlooked. Now he’s proving again that he is certainly no walk-on scrub and he’s showing that he’s up there with the best of them. As a left back.
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