Troy Deeney has claimed that watching Phil Foden in action reminds him of Ronaldinho.
Since the Manchester City midfielder has burst onto the scene, it is natural that many have tried to ascertain which player from the past is he the most similar to.
In November, Anton Ferdinand claimed that the 23-year-old is the modern-day version of Paul Gascoigne as a player.
Troy Deeney says Phil Foden reminds him of Ronaldinho
Earlier this campaign, Chris Sutton also went as far as to say that the treble-winner is reaching the English icon’s level already.
Since the start of the five-time Premier League winner’s career, apart from being compared to Paul Gascoigne, he has also been dubbed as the “Stockport Messi.”
However, after watching Phil Foden demolish Manchester United in an emphatic 3-1 win for Manchester City, Troy Deeney revealed that watching him in action reminds him of Ronaldinho.
“For me, he’s one of those people that, you know when you used to watch Ronaldinho play, the freedom, they don’t have many of those mavericks in the game anymore”, he said on BBC’s Match of the Day 2.
“You give him the ball and you see a street footballer playing and you’re like, ‘Woah, he’s good, I want to watch him.’ And I think that’s what I see when I watch him anyway.”
There’s very few players like Phil Foden in the game anymore
Much like Ronaldinho, Phil Foden also plays like a street footballer, which as Troy Deeney claimed is a rarity in football nowadays.
Back in the day, England also had the likes of Wayne Rooney and Joe Cole at their disposal, who were often described as street footballers for how freely they expressed themselves and how uniquely technical they were as players.
In today’s game, there are not many players like that, who seem to be tactically intelligent but lack the individual quality and ingenuity to thrive outside of their manager’s instructions.
Foden, however, has always been able to conjure something out of nothing and outside of his world-class qualities, he still seems like a child playing in the playground, even at the biggest of stages, which makes him such a one-of-a-kind player.
