Football Reporter for The Sun Tom Barclay believes that James McArthur is great from a technical point of view and has praised the Crystal Palace star for always showing for the ball.
The 34-year-old midfielder has featured under new manager Patrick Vieira in all eight of the club’s matches so far and has also captained the team on four occasions this season in the Premier League.
With his eight appearances in all competitions this term, McArthur takes his total to 234 matches for the Eagles, scoring 19 goals and registering 20 assists.
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Barclay believes that the central midfielder is great from a technical point of view, telling This is Futbol: “From a technical point of view, decision making is very, very good. Rarely plays the wrong pass, rarely makes the wrong decision, is always showing for the ball, always wants it, is often the man when you watch Palace, maybe it doesn’t come up when you’re watching them on TV, but particularly when you’re watching live, he’s just always showing for it.
“I know that’s what a sort of good ball possession central midfielder does, but he does it well and sets up attacks and yeah, I can see why they’re raving about him and why Vieira really, really appreciates him.”
Under Vieira, Palace have taken seven points from their opening seven games, losing only one of their last six games prior to the international fixtures, which was against Liverpool at Anfield.
Palace ended last season in 14th after accumulating 44 points and whilst he is ambitious, Vieira told BBC Sport in August: “As a manager, to put my ideas in place may take longer, but we are quite ambitious and want to perform and compete at this level.”