At the same time he was the only one defending Sassuolo's last goal by himself. And he finds balls in the box because his attacking awareness is miles ahead of the other CMs. Come on, never in a million years do you see Rabiot and Benta make those runs.
If you want to sit in an organized team and play him as a DM, then yes, forget it. He will never be good at that.
Ideally you want B2B mids that can attack the box and also have a functioning brain in defense. We haven't had that in like 8 years.
I can't comment the final goal, I missed it but there were numerous times he got caught out by pushing too far forward and players running off him.
I wouldn't call mindless runs to the box tactical awareness. He times his runs well at times but his movement can be reckless and his finishing is often poor (I'm not sure he had had a shot on target this season before today). To be fair to McKennie and Bentancur we have missed runs from midfield into the box in recent seasons. For his flaws and awful performances last season Bentancur has added it to his game this year and we have had goals from it as a result, either from him or someone else in the same move. He has also managed to combine it with knowing what is behind him to his credit, but we still need better and he is very inconsistent.
I'm not looking for McKennie to be a DM or a Vidal. All I want is a mid who can understand the basics of positioning and tactics as a minimum. If his passing or finishing were outstanding it is easier to overlook the flaws but they aren't.
We need to be looking at how to get our midfield to control a game. I have absolutely no faith that McKennie understands how to do that or the ability to even if he did.
If we were offered 30m we'd be crazy to turn it down. I'd sell all our mids for that money except Locatelli.