Former Molineux winger Mark Kennedy has compared Tommy Doyle, a midfielder for Wolves, to the great English players Steven Gerrard and Paul Gascoigne.
In an interview with The Athletic, Kennedy—who also played for Manchester City—shared his opinions about the young player, and his assessment is overwhelmingly positive.
Doyle has only made a handful of appearances so far at Molineux since signing on loan from City on transfer deadline day. He arrived at the club having been on duty with the England U21s at the Euros. And he also had a knock, so it’s been a bit of a slow start in terms of getting minutes but that is something Doyle expected. Doyle has impressed coming off the bench in Wolves’ last two Premier League games against Bournemouth and Newcastle United. One thing that has been notable about his time on the pitch so far is his technical quality – and Kennedy has made a pretty exciting comparison…
Mark Kennedy says Tommy Doyle plays a bit like Steven Gerrard
Kennedy worked with Doyle at the Manchester City academy and is therefore very well up and what he is like as a player. He has seen him develop from an early age, and knows that Wolves genuinely have a top prospect on their hands. In his interview, it is clear he feels Doyle is not just a talented player, but a really hard worker too, branding him ‘the ultimate professional’. And Kennedy really rates Doyle from a technical standpoint. He said: “He has an ability to dictate, to switch play with left foot and right. I’m not saying that Tommy is as good as Steven Gerrard, but if you remember Gerrard switching play with long-range passes, Tommy was doing those actions when he was 14.
“And I’m not saying Tommy is the next Paul Gascoigne, but at 14 he would drive past people and push people out of the way with his upper body. He was a real all-rounder. He was outstanding. I remember saying to my assistant at the time that Tommy must be one of the best midfielders in Europe for his age. “We played all of the top clubs in Europe and the only player I saw who was as good as Tommy was Bukayo Saka at Arsenal. He could hit diagonals like Gerrard, he could go past people like Gazza and he could score with left foot and right foot.”
A very exciting assessment – Doyle could be brilliant for Wolves
This is a really exciting verdict from Kennedy about Doyle, who Wolves can sign permanently for £5 million next summer. We haven’t really seen a great deal of him so far, given he arrived at the club on deadline day and didn’t have a pre-season and then had a small knock. He’s therefore got to work to get into the starting XI. But clearly, there is a strong potential he eventually will do.
He is surely knocking on the door though after his last two cameo appearances. Against Bournemouth and Newcastle, he helped change the game for Wolves and gave the team more control. You get the feeling that he could now start to become a bit more prominent. That is something Dave Edwards is predicting to happen.
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