[Albion] Davy Propper

[sussex_guy2k2]

Clearly the answer is Gross but there are many who thought he was too slow and expected him to be shifted in the Potter revolution. The most obvious comparison between the two is that they’re both slow but technically gifted players. Pascal has just proven to be more intelligent, versatile and consistently productive than Propper but I’m not sure many would have seen that in 2019 or 2020 (certainly not to the extent of Gross being a lynchpin of a team pushing the top 6!).

For 107 games, it feels like Propper doesn’t have many stand out performances. The one that sticks in my mind is the 3-1 win against Palace. We played a lot of that match with 10 men and it was the grittiest defensive shift I think he ever put in as a CDM.

Gross was THE lynchpin of our first year or two up. But it was built on Propper and Stephens doing a lot of the dog work for him.

The reality is, Gross is incredible. If he had any pace at all, he’d be playing for one of the traditional big 4. His stats are up there with the likes of De Bruyne in terms of chance creation and have been for most of his time here.

But that shouldn’t undervalue the work Propper put in when establishing us in this league, especially when he was clearly sacrificing his natural game a lot of the time.