Okay, I'm prepared to go against the current grain here. He was great in our our promotion winning season, but hasn't featured or done much in the four years since then. ( And four years is a hell of a long time in football. ) He got injured v MK Dons away and that was pretty much that. He went out on loan to Palermo and didn't do anything, came back got injured. Came back and got injured. He's a really nice bloke and all that but sentimentality isn't going to get you anywhere in this game. You're either good enough or you're not. And he isn't. What if he played for let's say Man U under Ferguson under these conditions? Would he keep him on or move him on?
I'm afraid that after three cruciate jobbies he isn't even fit for the championship.
It's hard to disagree with this. You have to accept that he simply will not be the same player he used to be, that's a fact. We'd all love him to return to the type of form he was in during our promotion season where he was the fulcrum for starting many of our attacks and certainly made Taarabt's life a lot easier, but as rightly pointed out....it was 4 years ago.