This. He's still not good enough in terms of his defending, pressing, and general awareness of where to be on the field.
However, I think he's much better than where he started earlier this year and if he continues to improve at this rate I could see him winning a starting job next year.
FWIW, below are some offensive and defensive stats from the last five regular season games that each player made an appearance in. Muyl has almost 3x the minutes. Etienne clearly struggles to win tackles, but Muyl only averages a little over 1 tackle per game. Muyl also gets beaten at the same rate. Etienne trails Muyl in assists, 1 to 2. The one defensive stat that's interesting is interceptions, Muyl has zero in his last five games and Etienne has two. Knowing that there is more to the press than stats, I was trying to find Opta numbers that should how much better Muyl was in the press, tackles won and interceptions were what I came up with. I don't know, Muyl is clearly better defensively, but does that matter if we leak goals anyway because of mistakes made by the defenders behind Muyl? I think BWP needs help offensively and I don't see Muyl doing that.
Muyl's last 5 Regular Season MLS Games:
PHI - 90mins, 0 goals, 0 assists, 0 shots on goals, 0 tackles won, 0 interceptions, 2 challenges lost
@CHI - 69mins, 0 goals, 0 assists, 0 shots on goal, 1 tackle won, 0 interceptions
@DAL - 90mins, 0goals, 1assist, 0 shots on goal, 3 tackles won, 0 interceptions, 3 challenges lost
NYC - 82mins, 0 goals, 0 assists, 0 shots on goal, 2 tackles won, 0 interceptions
ORL - 90mins, 0 goals, 1 assist, 1 shot on goal, 0 tackles won, 0 interceptions, 1 challenge lost
Total - 421mins, 0 goals, 2 assists, 1 shot on goal, 6 tackles won, 0 interceptions, 6 challenges lost
Etienne's last 5 Regular Season MLS Games:
PHI - 66mins, 0 goals, 0 assists, 3 shots on goal, 0 tackles won, 1 interception
@DAL - 3mins, 0 goals, 0 assists, 0 shots on goal, 0 tackles won, 1 inteception
NYC - 8mins, 0 goals, 0 assists, 0 shots on goal, 0 tackles won, 0 inteceptions
@POR - 68mins, 0 goals, 0 assists, 0 shots on goal, 0 tackles won, 0 inteceptions, 1 challenge lost
MTL - 4mins, 0 goals, 1 assist, 0 shots on goal, 0 tackles won, 0 interceptions, 1 challenge lost
Total - 149mins, 0 goals, 1 assist, 3 shots on goal, 0 tackles won, 2 interceptions, 2 challenges lost