The discussion is why can some players who are a 10 or an inside forward able to play as 8’s (Bernardo Sliva, Havertz, McAllister, De Bruyne, Foden, Bellingham) examples off the top of my head (I know McAllister is playing 6 atm) and others can’t? How much of it is tactically or position inflexibility or the manager not setting up the team properly.
And yes I am wandering my Mount or Bruno can’t play as double 8’s like the rest mentioned can.
There are basically no pure 10s or 8s or 6s or anything really, they are the standard molds to describe a player with certain qualities. No player really fits in them perfectly and we shouldn’t try to. Hell, there’s not even a clear definition of what an 8 or a 10 is. Some expect a 10 to be a pure playmaker and others expect them to be a shadow striker. An 8 is just a “box to box” but what does that even mean? Some may expect an 8 to be a ball carrying dribbler, others may see an 8 more as “can put in a tackle and can shoot from a pullback”, with not much care for their ball carrying.
Why can’t Mount and Bruno do it when Havertz and Ødegaard can? Because Bruno neither are good pressers/tacklers. Ødegaard is a pretty smart presser and has gotten better at tackling and Havertz’s defensive numbers are actually on par with Xhaka, partly thanks to his build: he’s tall enough to fight headers and despite being lanky as fuck, actually possess some strength.
I’ve mentioned on another comment that I see using numbers to more do with formations. Like a 4-2-3-1 will have a 10 whilst 4-3-3 will have two 8’s. Rather than what they do.
Then it’s the second part of my comment: Mount and Bruno doesn’t contribute enough defensively to work well as 2 8s, it leaves Casemiro, who is only getting older, and challenges pretty rash, very exposed.
It only gets worse when you consider that Rashford doesn’t contribute much defensively and Anthony, despite tracking back, is as useful as a training cone. Compare that to Martinelli who is pretty effective of a presser and Saka, who has played LB and generally very solid defensively for a winger. Utd’s personnel does not allow for 2 very attacking minded CMs who don’t do too well defensively.