No one was quite sure how Atlanta United were going to use Darlington Nagbe when he first signed for the Five Stripes. There wasn’t really a need for another attacking midfielder and Nagbe’s form had tailed off in the previous years. The fit didn’t seem to make sense.
But Tata Martino had a plan for his new midfielder. Rather than field him in a more advanced position, he dropped him a little deeper, asked him to play with a little more caution and positional awareness, and turned him into a box-to-box bulldozer bursting full of athleticism, power and game-orientating control.