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Why Manchester United’s most improved player is no longer just one for the future:

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Though I’m loathe to adopt one of Mr Wenger’s most grating epithets, it takes a player of great ‘mental strength’ to go from being a bit of a laughing stock to one of the Premier League’s finest young talents. Yet that’s the journey that Manchester United’s Jonny Evans appears to have made over the course of this season.

It has been a remarkable turnaround that is testament both to Evan’s ability and Sir Alex Ferguson’s nous for handpicking young defensive talent and giving them the belief they need to succeed at the very top level.

I think it’s fair to say that United fan’s patience with Evans begun to wane around the time of the derby day defeat to City. It was clearly his career nadir and he has to be held in some way accountable for United’s loss. He was sent off whilst United were 1-0 down and by the game’s end his side had suffered a 6-1 defeat. His involvement in Man United’s 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace only provided his detractors with further ammunition.

Since then, however he has managed to engineer a remarkable turnaround. Stepping into the central-defensive role freed up by Nemanja Vidic’s knee injury he has slowly established himself and is now playing with remarkable consistency.

He even grabbed his first goal for United against Wolves on Sunday and as a result seems to be undergoing some kind of re-evaluation. He’s clearly a better player than he was a year ago and is looking more and more like the future of United’s defence.

He’s just 24-years-old, so it’s only natural that he underwent a couple of dips before he reached his full potential. Let’s just hope that it’s all smooth sailing from here. I’d argue that he’s up there competing with Laurent Koscielny for the position of most improved defender in the Premier League and that he deserves a lot of credit for his improvement.

But his form hasn’t just come out of nowhere. It has got to be down to the fact that he’s getting a proper run of games in the squad. 33 appearances this season (a number that will continue to climb) is the most number of games he had since the 2008-9 season where he was played 34 times.

The increased game time combined with an increase in maturity has seen Jonny Evan’s United career spark into life this season. I can only hope that he continues to progress at this rate.

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