Speaking to DH in Belgium, Isaac Mbenza appears to be rather happy, weather aside, with his choice of swapping the south of France for Huddersfield, currently on loan from Montpellier.
Yet to play a full game of Premier League football, the 22-year-old got his first taste from the bench recently, playing 22 minutes against Cardiff in a 0-0 draw, as well as playing a 90 minutes against Stoke City in the EFL Cup.
So far, things are going well, even if he admits getting roughed up in training by his teammates is something he will need to get used to.
Another point he touched upon was the fact that his first experience of football in England was watching Manchester City from the Huddersfield bench in their second game of the season in a 6-1 defeat.
He said: “I’ve played some big teams like PSG, Marseille, Monaco, but City, seeing them really, really close up, it’s no surprise they’re at this level. You understand why they’re there, they’re the best. You can see it on the pitch.
“If they miss a chance, it’s not ‘It doesn’t matter’. They really beat themselves up when they miss a pass because they know they shouldn’t be missing it, but they still stay calm”.
As for where they compare next to a Paris Saint-Germain, who have the likes of Neymar or Kylian Mbappé who can change the game at any moment, he believes they’re different.
He said: “It’s collective. A team with touch-pass, touch-pass. It’s Guardiola. Basically, it’s the right pass at the right time that triggers everything: a pass opens many doors. You wonder how they do it. From the bench, I was watching, I was focused on the game, but they were pulling off passes that I never saw coming”.
Asked if he would have liked to enter the fray even when the team was 6-1 down, Mbenza stated it doesn’t matter what the score was, he just wants to play, and he wants to do so against the best, because that’s the only way you learn.
While Cardiff might not meet those requirements, the Huddersfield forward was still ‘happy’ and ‘fulfilling a dream’ by coming on against Neil Warnock’s side, even if he had to do a lot more defending than he was anticipating after Jonathan Hogg got sent off.
All in all, it was a ‘super experience’, as he puts it.
