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I concede Dele does not have awesome explosive pace over a short distance. He does not have the build for it. But he is not cumbersome slow either. Also he will still be running fast after the fast twitchers have blown their gaskets. He has found a way to make room with trickery.
If he was slow it would be a weakness but he isn't and the position he plays doesn't depend on it.
It's scraping the barrel to use a lack of pace as a weakness.
As for his passing, many times commentators praise him for quick passing and through balls with perfect weight. Some are underhit, some are overhit but that's common even at top level. He at least tries it and has licence to because the coaches know he can do it. If it goes wrong, invariably we have plenty to defend it as its in the opponents half. He is a flair player and will try things others either can't do or are scared to.
If you are a skills player, you're expected to do the unexpected and be creative, every single coach I know also understands that this will cost you successful passing stats, but when they do work, they can be devastating.
The key is how you recover from wayward passing, under Poch we immediately counter-pressed and won the ball back, under Jose we all did an impression of the Italian army - this compounds his and our weaknesses as a team.
That said, next season he will have no excuses, he has to come back fitter, sharper, and with the old aggression which is such a big part of his game.
His soft tissue injuries hopefully won't now keep reoccurring and that should inspire him to regain confidence in his abilities.
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