I think how players train and how they play don’t always match up. By all accounts McEachran was a keen and diligent trainer but, well you catch my drift. Halil might do the work but just play in a different way- it’s not a terrible thing but unhelpful. Many of us were critical of Moyes beating the need to press and work defensively into Said, who to his credit has done those hard yards and understood that succeeding at it and carrying it out in games is essential if he wants to play.
Solskjaer (or his replacement) is going to have to get some very fine attacking players indeed to knuckle down to contribute to defensive shape at least a bit. They probably do defensive drills and so on in training and don’t dissent from showing the effort, but it isn’t part of their on pitch game.
So Halil stands at a crossroads about how and where he’ll play. His way sees him playing for a massive club in his ancestral home country and for its national team, making his dad, friends and family proud. He could instead become an even bigger star on an even bigger stage by shining in the PL first, but that’s harder and less certain. There are times when my career has gone into the doldrums and I’ve wondered whether I shouldn’t have done things differently- volunteering to stay through the night to get that deal through rather than going off to the pub at 7 because sitting by a fax machine waiting for info that in fact I’d rightly predicted wouldn’t come until the next morning but the dullard who said yes got marked out for the promotion that set him onto now pulling in £700k. But in the end I’m not that guy and never needed the life or lack of that he led to his “success”. Being the next Toney would be our dream but not necessarily every player’s. And not just lazy ones- nobody would accuse Steve Bull of that but he followed a different dream.
