yes he has been bad. Just because his forward passes have been good doesn’t mean he has. He’s not a #10. His forward passes have been good plenty of games that he sucked in earlier as well. And back when Giroud was FFS Giroud it was because he was that bad then.
Does some horrendous things mixed in with some beautiful passes, all in all though I never feel really comfortable with him and I can see good sides exposing his weaknesses badly.
He was only pressured in a half-arsed manner for about 20 mins of the game and those 20 mins he looked like a spring chicken. The rest he had absolute freedom to just ping the final third and that may look alright, so does Elneny in the same situation.
I still feel that in a tough game where our opponent actually tries to win the midfield to control the game from there we’ll end up being so badly fked we’ll leave a #metoo hashtag on our official twitter afterwards.
A midfield that is poor under pressure = why we look alright at home but look like dirt away. However we have a long history of coaching midfielders well, eventually he will realise some of that Basel potential… amirite?
There’s room for improvement but I don’t think the ceiling is high enough to warrant investing much more time into him. Besides being a bit of a stupid player, I feel like his physical limitations will always be an issue, he’s just too too stiff & one footed.