Kobbie Mainoo delivered what might be his most complete performance yet for Manchester United in last weekend's 5-2 win against Ipswich, and head coach Michael Carrick has praised the young midfielder's desire to keep improving this season.
Mainoo came in from the cold in January to shine for United in the second half of last season, and a string of superb performances saw him make a late run into England's 26-man World Cup squad. But in North America, Mainoo was overlooked by Thomas Tuchel in the same way that Ruben Amorim ignored his claims in Manchester, and the 21-year-old didn't get a kick across eight matches during the summer.
He returned to his boyhood club for the final week of pre-season and made his first start of the season against Ipswich a week ago, delivering what might be his most complete performance yet for Carrick.
Carrick praises Mainoo's hunger to learn
That improvement stems from Mainoo's approach since returning to the team, according to the head coach, who believes there is more development to unlock because of that attitude.
"I think obviously Kobbie made big strides last season from finishing the season so strong and played ever so well last week again," said Carrick. "You can see in him his development and how much he's improving certain aspects of his game. He wants to learn, is hungry to learn, wants more all the time, which is great."
"Because he has had a really good eight months since I've been in, and it would be easy for him to think, 'This is all right, you know, I've got in the team, played a lot of games, and everything's good.' But he's pushing for more, as he should."
Increased competition in midfield
That approach is essential in a season when Mainoo will face more competition than ever before. United spent £155million on three new midfielders this summer, and Carlos Baleba, Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans will all have designs on starting games in midfield.
"I think the competition's a positive thing. That's competition, not necessarily because it's either one player or the other player, I think it's a collective to know that it's a strong group," said Carrick. "The beauty of having the competition, if you like, but more the foundation to be strong, is that you can learn off each other, you can help each other, and certainly as a midfield group, we feel that it's really strong."
The problem for the trio of new arrivals and the returning Mason Mount, who shone in pre-season before missing a month of action with injury, is that Mainoo has already made an impressive case to make one of those spots in the middle of the pitch his own.
Mainoo ready for another big season
He started in a deeper role last week and proved the concerns that Amorim harboured about his game defensively were a thing of the past, and Carrick is pleased with the way the academy graduate is developing.
"Kobbie can have another big season, for sure," he said. "He's come back great and you see that on the weekend, but in and around the group, in and around training, you can see him growing, his personality. He's obviously maturing all the time as well, and he's still so young. There's loads to still come from him, which is great.
"The great thing about it is that he wants to learn, trying to give him little bits of things here and there, he really takes it on board well and learns. That's going to give him a great chance to fulfil his potential, which obviously he's got an awful lot of."
