Enjoy Antonee Robinson – we won’t have him much longer
In a week where Jay Stansfield became our fifth-largest sale despite only playing a handful of minutes in the Premier League, cynics like me are looking at who’ll be our next big exit.
The answer is obvious to us all: Antonee Robinson.
The question was raised on the podcast last week: is there a better left-back in the top flight? Right now, the answer has to be no.
Robinson bagged his second assist in two games on the weekend, when he set up Adama Traore just after the half-hour mark. It follows a career-best six assists last term. That attacking potency is yet another area the US international has improved on in the past 18 months.
Antonee has blossomed into the perfect modern full-back. Astute and resolute defensively and exciting going forward. He’s building a solid understanding with Alex Iwobi on that left-hand side, and you get the feeling he’ll do the same with Emile Smith Rowe too, if he is deployed out there.
When I was a kid, no one on the playground pretended to be Gary Neville. But the game’s changed, and nowadays aspiring ballers want to be Kyle Walker or Andy Robertson because some of the most exciting moments in a match come from the flanks. You can bet your bottom dollar that there’ll be youngsters who want to be the next Antonee Robinson – both here in the UK and in the US.
We all know the elite clubs are watching him – and have done for years (AC Milan, anyone). This week reports suggest that Manchester United see Robinson as a successor to the perennially injured Luke Shaw.
With all this in mind, I think it’s clear we’re watching Antonee’s final season in a Fulham shirt. If he departs in the summer, he’ll have racked up just shy of 200 appearances in a five-year period. And I hope in the years to come he’s looked back on with the same reverence we hold for full-backs like Steve Finnan and Rufus Brevett.
If he carries on in this vein, that won’t be in doubt.
