Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has praised Donny van de Beek after his return from injury in midweek.
Van de Beek had not played since August before coming on as a substitute in the 3-0 win over Sheriff on Thursday night.
He is yet to make a start under Ten Hag, who of course managed the midfielder during their time together at Ajax before joining United.
At his press conference ahead of the weekend clash with West Ham, Ten Hag was asked about van de Beek and hailed his ability to get into goalscoring positions and recover on defensive transitions.
Ten Hag on Van de Beek
He said: “Donny [van de Beek] came in and in the last part he had also some good positions, in-between the lines, so I think also that combination was good.
“He was long out, so I was happy to give him some minutes because you need to get in the right form. But he’ll have to work himself back.
“He is not even one week in training, same as Harry Maguire so I was really happy to bring Harry and Donny [on], to give them minutes because we need them in the coming weeks.
“When you analyse the season so far, then if he was available then he should get his chance.
“Because we need goals and I know Donny is really good in the position to score goals but also he is really good in defence transition.”
It might have been expected that Van de Beek would go up the central midfield pecking order when Ten Hag came in over the summer.
But he did not get a huge amount of chances during pre-season and Christian Eriksen and Casemiro came in to further bolster the competition for places.
The injury setback has not helped him and he has been left out of the provisional Netherlands squad for the World Cup by former United manager Louis van Gaal.
Now he is back, he will hope to get opportunities to finally get his United career off the ground and make a first start of the season before long.
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