I like stats with context, I’m sure you’ve become accustomed to me saying this by now and seen that I usually attempt to back up a numbers with what I’ve seen with my own eyes. In the case of Winks this is exactly what I am doing now.I like stats. I also like context. He attempts to do it, yes. But he usually chooses a safe option. If we have any computer whizzes on this forum, I urge them to make a video of Winks when he receives the ball and what he does with it next in virtually any game.
So what we have is a guy who is 24 next month who is afraid to show for the ball under pressure and who waits until he receives it to get his head up. He is a tempo-killer, generally speaking. The easiest way to tell this is by how many touches he takes before playing a pass. So indecisive and tentative. Exuding no authority. I have had an issue with the movement of our attacking players for many years, but they are more likely to look like lampposts when our build-up play is slow-which it is. It's not his age that is the issue. It's his skill set.
You are moving the conversation away from the fact that he is a prolific ball progressing player of his age!!! Yet you are even trying to feminism this, why?
He can be safe, he can improve on this, that’s what young players have the capacity to do. There are also other reasons for this too:
a) There are no runners showing for the ball
b) Our current coach doesn’t focus on attacking phases of play
c) We are struggling for control in almost every game we play, sometimes it’s just better to regain control for a period. It’s his role to set the tempo, if you say he kills it, he might just be trying to have us regain a semblance of control we lack. But those halves of games we played well in, where we are moving the ball with tempo, that’s also down to him.