da heads bet： Once upon a time every team had a cult hero, a player with inherent limitations or a character flaw that often meant he wasn’t necessarily the best around but who was still absolutely adored by his club’s fan-base. These days you’ll be lucky to identify five across the entire Premier League.
da realbet： This is a great shame because the importance of having a cult hero at a club cannot be under-stated, offering as they do a deeper connection between eleven professional athletes and thousands of fans on a tiny fraction of their wages and maybe as meaningful as this is the fun element they bring. Chants are devoted to them, usually a bit off-kilter and humorous.
When they do something well it means more. When they mess up it prompts not criticism but a tut and a wry smile.
There appears to be only a handful of these dying breed left in the top flight, fighting the good fight; popular despite, not because, and undoubtedly one of them is Sheffield United’s Lys Mousset.
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Powerful, explosive, and fond of a dribble or three the 23-year-old former France under-21 striker arrived at Bramall Lane from Bournemouth this summer for £10m.
The fee – a club record for the newly promoted Blades – raised eyebrows from some quarters because Mousset was hardly prolific on the south coast, scoring just five goals in 71 appearances. Yet given these disappointing figures it says a great deal that his departure was greeted only with sadness by the Dean Court faithful.
It didn’t take long for United fans to find out why. Mousset fulfils the key aspect of any cult hero in that he is occasionally brilliant but often not.
For him it is not inconsistency that leads to such erraticism: rather he unfailingly opts against taking the safe choice, instead getting his head down and seeking to single-handedly destroy. He excites. He gets bums off seats.
This alone is enough to make any player a fan favourite but the Motivilliers-born forward’s recent habit of adding substance to the style has only seen his popularity rise further.
A winner against Arsenal last month was swiftly followed by another game-changing performance from the sub’s bench away to West Ham with a volleyed equaliser for good measure.
A week later Mousset grabbed the headlines with a hat-trick of first-half assists as Burnley became the latest big scalp of the Blades. Against Spurs he teased and tormented. Surpassing his Bournemouth scoring record before Christmas looks almost inevitable at this rate.
“He’s a popular boy with the other players and he’s a popular boy with the supporters as well. You can see why they’ve taken to him,” manager Chris Wilder said at the end of October, clearly pleased that his expensive summer gamble is paying off.
As for the player himself he is resolved to repaying the trust shown in him by the Yorkshire club: “I have been waiting for this chance since I came to England, to prove myself, and I want to show the fans what I’m about.”
He already has secured a place in their hearts for a long time to come.