YORK City boss Steve Watson has been impressed with Olly Dyson’s versatility this season.

Generally deployed as an attacking midfielder, the 21-year-old has played in six different positions this season as City plug the gaps left by injuries.

Most recently, he has impressed at right-back in lieu of Michael Duckworth - who returned from injury last Saturday in the left-back berth with Dyson continuing on the right of the back four.

“He needs four more to beat my record at Newcastle,” laughed Watson.

“He’s been great. We brought him in as an attacking midfielder and we quickly realised that we could play in the hole as a 10 because, for his age, he’s got very good awareness, very good centre of gravity and turns really well.

“Unlike a lot of players his age, he’s got a really good picture of what’s around him.

“He knows when to turn on his back foot and pop it off, he knows when to keep with the ball with extra touches.

“With a football brain like he’s got, we knew he could play a couple of positions.

“Right wing and right of a four when we changed to 4-4-2 was never going to be a problem for him.

“But the right-back role was certainly never a role that we really thought about.

“We thought about it the odd time but we never really needed him to play there.

“Kingy (Josh King) for a centre half is very mobile and I think that as the game went on last week he got better and better. And obviously Ducky is our first-choice right-back.

“When it was thrown at us at Spenny, Dyson was the one we went with, it was between him and Harrison Hopper.

“Dyson has probably just got that little bit more experience in our team and in this league.

“He probably surprised us a little bit with how good he was defensively, how gritty he was and how hungry he was not to be beaten.

“You can see his composure as well when he does get the ball.

“Full-backs get the ball probably more than any other player so to have a full-back that is as good as him going forward, he’s probably as likely to threaten with assists and goals as he did as a right midfielder anyway.

“We’ve been delighted with them”

He continued light-heartedly: “I’m not planning on playing him at left-back, defensive midfielder, centre half or striker. But you never know with the way this season has gone.

“He’s done great and I thought he was our stand-out player last week.

“Olly just loves football and he will tell you that he just wants to play. There’s no doubt that he’s got his preferred position and it’s higher (up the pitch).

“But he has shown nothing but a great desire and appetite to play there when we’ve asked him to.”