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It has been suggested Bukayo could benefit from a more central role, a move that allowed Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi to post astronomical goal numbers after being freed from defenders competing against them on the touchline. Mikel isn’t against the idea in the future if the stars align and it benefits the team in the long run.

Assessing this idea, he added: “I think it will depend a lot on the qualities and the players that surround him. For someone to be an inside player rather than an outside player, someone has to be outside and that player, that full-back, that attacking midfielder and the nine must leave the space for that. But I’m definitely very open to developing players.

“Sometimes it’s the role, sometimes it’s the position on the pitch and sometimes we can do other things so he can spend more time in that position because if the ball is wide on the opposite side we can choose where to put it want to have.” .”

For several years now, Bukayo has been the main man on the right, while his accomplice Gabriel Martinelli patrols the left in a different style. Mikel is happy that he can choose between these two different variants depending on the game and believes that the two are experienced enough to make their own decisions about switching sides if necessary without his direction.

Of the two options, he said: “It will never be the same because they have different qualities. We have to understand that we have many other threats to our left, and we have over the years. If not, we wouldn’t score as many goals as we did in the last two seasons, so I’m really happy with that. Different is good, it doesn’t have to be symmetrical. Asymmetries in football are big and very difficult to combat.

“Their understanding of the game and the spaces and the timing in which they move in relation to each other is strong. I think freedom has to increase because decision-making is getting better because they understand it better, which will create uncertainty among the opposition. At the moment they are in a phase where they have much more freedom than in the past.”