They were third from bottom when he got injured. He was nowhere near as bad as you make out, and don’t forget he was never a DM (and played a lot of his youth games as an AM - I’m pretty sure he scored a ton of goals in one of his youth seasons) but still did a better job there than Sissoko, who spends all game hiding and pointing, bunting the ball back to where it came like it’s a live grenade, ambles around, loses his man and can’t tackle without fouling and cost us a fucking CL final with his stupid pointing.
I never rated Mason highly, I wasn’t particularly bothered we sold him for a decent 12m (Hull’s record signing) and none of the youth watchers eulogised over him at any point in his career.
But he was far from terrible and did a good job at an important time for us and Poch. We could have done with some of that energy, aggression and half decent football ability in the last couple of years when our midfield has been a lethargic no go zone.
Poch himself said he owed a lot to Mason. And I get what he meant, he might not have been the most talented but his attitude, willingness to press like a cunt for 90 minutes, never hide from the game and at least try to play football (along with the youthful and equally hungry Bentaleb and Kane) was the spark that helped ignite Poch’s ethos.
He was outstanding in that magnificent game against Woolwich when we pressed the shit out of them and played them off the park and beat them after they’d taken the lead. I’ve not seen too many better midfield performances in the last 6 years than Mason and Bentaleb’s that day.
He was better than you give him credit for, and we did pretty well with him in our midfield, played better football than we have for the last two years.
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