I'm not giving him a pass, he can be criticized for a poor game. But he's criticized regardless of how he plays. You mentioned we need players who are more consistent (whatever that means; Mckennie has been one of the few consistent performers all year). I simply asked who is available that could replace him that would actually be this consistent and have the same assist numbers as him under such a disastrous coach. You didn't respond to that specifically, probably because no names come to mind. So the point is, people can criticize him all they want, but it's silly to harp about replacing him when at this point he's basically irreplaceable.
yeah buddy i don't have a crystal ball, hit me. i provided plenty of factual data on midfielders being consistent and overall more effective than mckennie, you ignored that and it's all right, i get that it doesn't fit your narrative
mckennie has less than 20 career assists. i appreciate his growth but let's not pretend like suddenly became some pirlo/pjanic hybrid
as for consistency, not being stuck at ~80% pass accuracy to be actually useful in hold up play would be a nice start. but it won't happen, players can't learn passing at that age unfortunately. and while he always had a special instinct within the opposition box, he failed to score or assist consistently for the majority of his career. now he can thank vlahovic for scoring a few goals, it certainly helps with his passes eventually becoming assists. funnily enough 5 players have more expected assists per 90 minutes than him within our squad... besides the assists, he has one outstanding skill (he can clear the ball effectively), other than that, he's pretty average, be it passing, tackling, duels, progressive passes, crosses, whatever's measurable
rabiot looked irreplaceable after he scored 10 goals last season. look at him now. for me there are a few players i'd prefer to keep, but literally no player is irreplaceable in this current squad