Jonjo is a risk taker and therefore when things go well, it's all happiness and light and when things go badly it's all doom and gloom. I think he does good and bad in equal measures, it's just that most people remember the bad and conveniently forget the good.
It's easy to laud Carroll, Britton or Ki when they run around in front of the defence making short passes without giving the ball away. Shelvey brings something else to the table. Is Carroll going to score from the half-way line? Probably not. Jonjo had a couple of good opportunities to score yesterday and missed both, but at least he got himself into scoring positions.
He's the type of player that's going to split opinion right down the middle.
I suppose we all see things differently but when Carroll has played from the start we have looked and played like ourselves again. Leon and Carroll aren't prolific in front of goal but his worth is doing a job we miss when Shelvey plays.
Jonjo had a poor game yesterday and, apart from losing his rag, demonstrated all his flaws - slow in thought and execution, wandering up field leaving big gaps for others behind him to fill, calling for a pass while standing behind and opponent, although his short passing yesterday was fairly accurate but long balls were speculative (and, as usual, relied heavily on the wings to reposition and take the pass rather than the ball finding them), a liability in defence (this time the clumsy challenge was in the box), finishing was poor, looked disinterested with his back to play and head down.
I'm convinced that with Jonjo starting our shape and style is compromised. Brendon isn't flavour of the month now but he does know talent and he was happy to off load Shelvey as he knew he wouldn't fit with what he wanted for Liverpool, and that is the same as made us a successful team; quick passing, possession, making spaces for passes, wearing teams down by getting them chase shadows. Let others play hoof ball.
Either Monk builds the team around Jonjo or lets him go in January. And, when I same him warming up with a first team bib on my heart sank. I knew we'd struggle and we did.
Yesterday Palace gave us a lesson in pass, move and keep possession.
You're having a laugh, aren't you?