Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal says that Timothy Fosu-Mensah’s natural playing position is yet to be determined, with the Dutchman admitting that the youngster could follow Bastian Schweinsteiger’s example in switching positions.
The 18-year-old has played and excelled at right-back, left-back and centre-back since breaking into the United first-team fold in February and has the capacity to play further forward in midfield, as shown at Under-21 and Under-18 level.
And when asked if Fosu-Mensah would eventually be deployed as a midfielder in the future, Van Gaal said that many options were available for his fellow Dutchman and cited the example of Schweinsteiger, who was originally a right midfielder when he started his career at Bayern Munich before being retrained to play in the centre of midfield under the tutelage of the current United manager.
Speaking ahead of United’s FA Cup semi-final against Everton, he said:
It is dependable on vacancies in your squad. You have seen that players in my squad are playing in different positions than what they are used to in their former careers. It is also a little bit of luck. When there is a vacancy and you think a young player has the quality to play there, you give him the chance. If he takes the chance then that makes him already mentally a good player.
You cannot say that a player is [just] a full-back. You can see qualities and you make a profile of positions and then you look at the qualities of a player and see if he can fit that. Can he do that, can he perform that? Maybe he shall perform it and then he sticks to that position and then he is the best of all.
You can ask Bastian Schweinsteiger who, at Bayern Munich, played on the right side, the right wing. I made him a centre midfielder because I looked at his profile and I thought that he can better play in the middle and he enjoys it more than on the right side. I have changed a lot of positions of players.
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