I think in that position he loses the time on the ball that makes him so effective, he also takes the ball facing his own goal a lot more which means he loses the ability to scan the whole pitch with his vision, no doubt he could plug a hole there but don't think it's worth what you lose for the long term
That performance against city at villa park was best I've seen us play in my lifetime and the effort put into that was ridiculous. Our form after that gamed dipped dramatically (including the arsenal game , which we won but were poor). You have to pick your battles to win a war. And obviously Unai has decided not to take that toll on his team a second time in a season.
Very negative on here, we basically played like this against Chelsea in league cup first leg and then tried to rob it in last 20mins. Trust the process
His passing was so good, without him our midfielders are constantly taking the ball facing their own goal, he seems to find that pass through the eye of a needle every time, allowing them to run a lot more direct
I don't think many of us doubted his capability, it's was his consistency that was in doubt. He has now started to produce the type of performance that he had in that Everton cameo, soon after he had arrived, now he is doing it on a weekly basis
But people on here are still happy we went for him instead because he played nice football.
I'll drive him to the airport while you lot recover any cry yourself to sleep , he was no better than Nzogbia.