He definitely does. Bentancur covers a lot of ground and at a very high intensity to boot, runs about 11.5-12km in games where he plays the whole 90 minutes.
Here's the Milan game for example:
Sorry, my word choice wasn't very good. And I would agree that against Milan he probably had one of his best matches. The wonders of putting him alongside a holding midfielder like Arthur who regularly relieves pressure in the midfield well and thus relieves a lot of what makes Bentancur an issue in my opinion.
Yes, Bentancur does a lot of running at times but he is not effective in his running. His stats in terms of pressure, interceptions, tackles aren't particularly good for a defensive midfielder. His accumulation of yellows from constant bad fouls is a particular sticking point for me because it highlights his issues. Bentancur is regularly out of position or caught in a bad position and reacts accordingly. He is not good at tackling usually and thus he tackles poorly and gets carded. And in terms of the running, I would think we could agree his is very much one of the "strollers" from last year who was regularly seen walking back on defense at times and in our deepest struggles. He wasn't putting it all out there regularly. That is part of what I was referring to. He is very much a jogger and walker far too often in my opinion.
I hate to use the dreaded "eye test" but Bentancur also just seems to not be effective in his positioning, he's regularly out of position and running to regain his positioning. I think part of it is because his role at Juventus is so different from his role with Uruguay and probably his best role. He is not a defensive midfielder nor is he a holding midfielder but he's also not an attacking midfielder or box-to-box. He's kind of none of them but pieces of all of them and that is his limit and what hurts him. Especially in a club like Juventus where we need him to play a role and not just "exist" in the midfield, running to catch his mistakes or make up for being too far forward, too far left, too far deep, etc.
Oddly enough, on the flip side, I think McKennie is far less talented or technical as Bentancur but has way better positioning. In fact, McKennie has very very good positioning and you can see that in terms of where he arrives in the box and where he pushes during setpieces. McKennie is shorter than Bentancur but much more of a threat than Bentancur has ever been on set pieces or attacking. McKennie is not as good as passer as Bentancur, he's not as physical, he's not as "smart" I would say as Bentancur. But he is regularly in the right place and puts himself in the right place, even defensively, the make some interceptions and tackles. But McKennie has his limits on the opposite side in terms of pure technical ability and also probably isn't our level either.
Sorry for the long response
gotta ahead of myself and rabbled.
Edit: to bring it back, Nandez is the antithesis of Bentancur. He is strictly a role, he is a defensive midfielder who will struggle less under pressure but give almost nothing going forwards in my opinion. He will provide that anchor in the middle to allow Locatelli to go forward more and be unleashed in the midfield with less of the risks of bad tackles, bad positioning.
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