Back to his very best Iron must be a regular starter

Match verdict by Hughie Southon

Wow, how much difference did Manu Lanzini make when he appeared for Said Benrahma against Watford despite apparently having some sort of Achilles issue!

I said in my ratings that I don’t believe the Algerian to be a Premier League player yet and so again it proved last night – whether he is good enough to ever become a regular top six player I have serious doubts and that is the level we are looking at now!

The same is of course true of several others but the former Brentford player was a near £30 million purchase and frankly isn’t proving good enough.

Manu, meanwhile, cost us around £8 million back in 2016  after a season on loan and looks worth a lot more than that over recent games.

Vision, speed and accuracy of defence splitting passes at times, whilst passing opposition players sometimes with ease, the man’s a joy to behold again.

Should he not be starting against Leicester at the weekend there will be something seriously wrong.

Talking of great buys – and I have offered some mild criticism of the manager recently – what a purchase Craig Dawson has turned out to be.

With all the limelight on Zouma last night he was lost in the shadows a bit but once again he produced a top performance along with Jarrod Bowen of course.

It wasn’t a pretty watch but how important could those three points turn out to be at the end of the season.