Man City fan here. I have been lurking for a while and hope you don't mind me posting. I saw a lot of McAtee (and Doyle) at EDS level and he always stood out amongst a very talented group. It has not surprised me that it has taken him some time to adapt to senior football as many of our other academy lads have struggled making the step up. Tommy Doyle spent the first half of last season on the fringes at Hamburg before doing better at Cardiff and currently Liam Delap, son of Rory of long throw-in fame, is struggling to fulfill his potential at Stoke.
The loans of both players seem to be turning out well for all parties. It is great experience for our lads to be at a team that is battling for a big prize. We also have Taylor Harwood-Bellis at Burnley and Callum Doyle at Coventry so lots of interest in following the Championship this season.
I am currently in the slightly bizarre situation of rooting for Burnley due to their manager being a City legend but it would be great if both you and they get promotion. Good luck for the rest of the season.
Bear in mind that the last time we took on a hot young talent was Ben Woodburn from Liverpool and he was surprisingly poor.
Like a rabit in the headlights, low confidence and hardly played for us and every time he came on as sub you could see he couldn't adapt to the Championship level.
So when we heard great things about McAtee...there were plenty of Blades thinking...."probably another Ben Woodburn".
Update on your players:
Doyle is more of a consistent engine room type of midfielder, decent with the ball but also excellent without the ball.
He doesn't stand out as anything special but he's a solid 7 out of 10 most matches.
He's an asset at Championship level but due to his style of play but I'm not sure he's anything special for PL level.
Not seen anything to suggest he's good enough to play for Man City, good all-round player though so maybe we can sign him?
In early matches McAtee did the odd trick and flick but was generally ineffective, also he looked poor when out of possession.
He came across as more of a show pony flair player with potential but didn't like defending/ tackling.
His 1st start was away at Luton and he very much looked like a lost little boy playing against the men of Luton.
Hence the early comments from our fans that McAtee won't hack it at this level, yes, he might have some talent but there's more to football than mere talent.
However gradually he's improved his performances, worked harder when out of possession showing fight and effort, this is a good way to win over our fans.
His general games were pretty average but we noticed he'd pop up with a moment of skill/ class to create clear goal scoring chances.
However in recent matches, he's slightly improved again, his confidence must be growing because he's now seeing more of the ball
and playing like a poor mans Phil Foden, good 1st touch, nice awareness with good passing but what makes him stand out is
like our other player, N'Diaye he's capable of short busts of speed and dribbling past defenders causing panic.
The beauty for Sheff Utd is we can be playing quite poorly in a match but N'Diaye and McAtee are 2 players who might also be playing poorly then they'll produce a moment of PL level skill/ class from nothing, dribbling past their defenders to set up a goal.
As mentioned above McAtee is currently no where near Man City level. He's just an above average Championship player with moments of quality.
However he's gradually improving each match so it does make you wonder what his ceiling is and where his improvement will end?
Towards the end of the season he might end up being one of our star players and far too good for Championship level.