His progressive stats aren’t bad, especially considering he is on the ball less and has played some of his minutes up front. There is only a small difference in key passes and progressive passes, but if you were to adjust to look on a per pass basis it’s even more favourable (for instance, he plays more key passes per pass than Xhaka last season and Odegaard this season). I think the issue is not so much that he’s always going backwards it’s that he’s not on the ball enough.