Injuries are getting a bit much for him now at this point. Defenders develop a lot at his age and there's a reason people can see potential in players, if you miss too many games though you'll never reach the heights. From our perspective it's very easy to see him becoming the next John Stones, however is it also too early to say if he'd be the next Mason Holgate? Any player's levels can drop drastically when you're not playing for long stretches.
On the cusp of COVID, Holgate was about to be called into the England squad I'm pretty sure, but he didn't play much after that and his career never recovered. Branthwaite has to be very determined to get through this spell because otherwise he'll be another like Holgate who had the potential and that's it, rather than the likes of Stones who had it all, and even with injuries got through it to the top level. Even on a lower level we saw with the likes of Galloway and Garbutt before that sometimes potential is just that, and even if they show it at a younger age, there's no guarantee that translates to "26 year old experienced PL player" which is exactly what we need, they sometimes lose it too as we've seen.
