He's come a long way. He should be a 90 minute player with in the next few games. He might of played 90 against San Jose(not sure) but his game condition for a full 90 is not quite there yet. Regardless, his presence in the line-up has really sparked United. If this team remains healthy and Ben plays up to his usual standard, WATCH OUT.
I don't think we'll see a quality 90 minutes from Ben until next year. He runs out of gas around 65-70 minutes. It took Ben two years to be a 90 minute player, he was continually running out of gas in the 80th minute under Bruce. But the team just has so much more bite (as opposed to just plain biting) when he's on the field.
And bringing in Villegas as a late game sub is very nice. Something that hasn't been commented on much is Olsen's defensive play: it's great. Last game he kept Barrett and Corrales from helping out their team offensively and SJ really likes those two going forward as they help out Graziani so much. Olsen's defense also lets Reyes leave his right back position with little fear that the opposing team will exploit that spot. Offensively, the SJ game showed that Olsen, Convey, and Etcheverry are slowly developing an understanding where all three can play the middle or either side, interchanging at will.
Skip is right, Olsen has been playing well both ways. He and Reyes seem to be starting to click together. Ben sometimes makes diagonal runs towards the middle, allowing Reyes to overlap down the sidelines. Ben then tracks back to defend against the counter. The one thing I see missing from Ben so far is taking many people on 1 v 1. Hopefully this part of his game will start to come back and he will be in contention for a National team recall.