Simply not true. His tracking back was always dreadful but he'd regularly work to try and make things happen, not just for himself but for the team. There's a number of appearances where he was almost the only player we had with the ability to drag a result out of the game, the one that sticks in my memory was Burnley when we were fighting relegation and 1-0 down. He came off the bench and was obviously, immediately the best player on the pitch - he assists, scores and then should have had a second assist but Miggy fluffed his lines: If he goes then good luck to him. If he stays then he's a great option for us IF he can stay fit. He tore Man City a new arsehole last season, they had the joint best defence in the league last year and he could have got 4-5 assists (he got 2). Edit: not sure why the link doesn't work, but if you click the line it's there on youtube. Just the Burnley game mentioned above.
It requires some effort to actually see that it's good so instead just do the easy thing and say it's rubbish instead? I hear you.
Not really but I don’t rate him. Sorry if that offends a lot of people but I don’t. I don’t trust him to do the right thing with ball. I used to want to but his head kept going down after losing the ball and not passing to team mates. Than the injuries. But at the same time yes he has the quality to come on in last 5 minutes of a champions league final and do a Teddy Sherringhan. The problem is he is either injured or in one of those selfish moods and occasionally he has a storming game. People seem to think he’s HBA’s second coming but he’s nowhere near his level.
Don't disagree with most of that. I'd argue he's a fairly different player to HBA though, when Arfa was having a bad game he offered nothing whatsoever to the team but when he was having a great game he was totally unplayable. ASM isn't as extreme as that, although he doesn't track back like he should (and ultimately that's what he'll be going for) he doesn't disappear, he's still making the runs and trying but only when we're on the front foot. He did shine a lot more when he was the main man though, if he isn't willing/able to adapt to how we play then he's not worth keeping - he'd be worth £30-40m for some teams just not us now I suppose. We would have been relegated previously without him though, pretty certain of that.
Most definitely and that fans should be thankful for that time under SB but I genuinely don’t get the fans who think he’s still the next messiah. Sadly he hasn’t improved under EH enough to warrant being kept when he’s one of our most valuable players in terms of money yet nowhere close to being a starter.
He's an annoying player and unfortunately his fitness isn't great either... if you can get 40 million for a player that averages about 5 a season then you're robbing someone. He's a good dribbler and terrific dancer but so what... goals I like goals
