This is just a quick thought.

Over the past few years we saw a new kind of 10 as the dominant force, the athletic pressing physical player. Your Mason Mounts and Connor Gallaghers etc. Players who would regain possession, more valuable out of possession than the traditional 10 who would create chances and be a vital cog in possession.

Players like Isco became rare.

But now we’ve got anpther new wave of players. Athletic runners as the recent pressers were but more aggressive in the traditional way, making runs into the box during attacks instead of sitting outside the box waiting to pounce back on the change of possession. Think Jude at Madrid, McTominay at Napoli.

In bw these we also had players like Damsgaard which had the potential to define a generation but didn’t.

I’m not saying one or the other is now meta, just that we’ve currently got more molds than before which can be plugged in different playatyles.