Former Arsenal striker Ian Wright believes Marcel Sabitzer has given Erik ten Hag an alternative option in the attacking-midfield position after his impressive performance in Manchester United's 1-0 win over Brentford on Wednesday night.
The Austrian, who joined United on loan for the remainder of the season from Bayern Munich on the final day of the January transfer window, claimed the assist for Marcus Rashford to score the only goal of the game. He nodded the ball down inside the penalty area, allowing Rashford to fire home from close quarters for his 28th goal of the season.
After experiencing a difficult afternoon against Newcastle at the weekend, Sabitzer was transformed against the Bees, helped by Ten Hag giving him the license to roam, instead of sitting deep and being tasked with breaking up play. He swapped roles with Bruno Fernandes and played higher up the pitch, with the latter tasked with dictating proceedings from a deeper area.
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The former RB Leipzig ace most definitely took his chance in the position and Wright believes he may have given Ten Hag food for thought moving forward.
"You have to say, Sabitzer came up with the goods today," Wright told Premier League Productions. "With the assist and in certain other areas, he was getting into pockets, making some nice little moves and always making himself available. He got taken off in the end but I thought he did more than enough tonight in that No.10 position."
Addressing Fernandes' performance in a deeper role, Ten Hag, speaking in his post-match press conference, said: "The way we played against Brentford, which is a very tough opponent, if you see their results and analyse them especially against top teams, they play really well and it's very difficult to create chances against them. We create something but especially on the ball, we played very well.
"It was initiated by Bruno, he played a brilliant game on the ball, dictating, made the rhythm of the game from the back, overload in midfield and our wide players played really well."
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