The Athletic.

A few months ago, Cobby Mayneau had not played a minute for his club at senior level, let

alone his country. Now at 18, he is one of Manchester United's best players, and after

a man of the match performance for England

last night, Gareth Southgate was full of praise. Everything that we've seen with his club,

he reproduced in an England shirt, which isn't always the case. Very calm, received so well

under pressure, strong. So how has one so young been able to establish himself at the highest level so quickly?

And in terms of Euro 2024, has it gone beyond Mayno just being in the squad for England?

Does he need to start?

I'm Ayahu Akimuelere.

Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast.

Yeah. FC podcast. Okay, so joining us today to talk Mayno.

We have Manchester United writer Carl Anka, who's also part of the Talk of the Devil's podcast, our data writer and part of the athletic football tactics podcast, Mark Kerry, and also the athletics Michael Bailey, who was at Wembley for us last night. Mark, let's start with you, I guess from an analytic perspective. All eyes were fixed on Mayno last night.

Where did he fit into this squad tactically, in your opinion?

Well, I think, I mean, Gareth Southgate said as much.

He offers something to England that a lot of the England midfielder's don't,

and that's his ability to be so confident and incisive on the ball. I think that a lot of

the England midfielders have you to list Connor Gallagher, John Henderson, Declan Rice to a certain

extent and we know how good Declan Rice is in other facets of his game. But all of those players

are quite safe on the ball. They'll play the simple pass,

the pass that we all expect and our eyes kind of automatically go to where we think that

recipient is. Cobby Manu doesn't play those passes. He plays the passes that we don't expect.

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