Now that’s the Diaby I know.
You can never compare his game intelligence and awareness to Vieira, that’s why I never liked those comparisons.
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I did a lot of research today (one of my phases of reminiscing the good old times of Arsenal)
Dan Smith in an interview dated 2015, claims it was unintentional, utter bullshit. He plays semi pro football in Australia and as a side business sells CCTV, security stuff. Says, Wenger not forgiving him and decline in his football career/as well as being remembered as the guy who ruined Diaby’s career haunts him even today (good for him!)
I’ve been trying to reach out to Diaby’s team as Diaby has done a lot of volunteer work for religious communities in London, he’s ever so humble, down to earth and a kind soul. However, he’s completely ghosted from his socials in recent years, hopefully he’s doing well. He deserved a lot more.
Him and Ben Arfa (from the same group) were destined for great things. Sigh.
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Ferguson also thought Moyes would be a great successor to him…
Just sayin… 
Honestly he had some great games but he was very frustrating to watch and I feel like he’s heavily overrated. His potential is a bit unclear because we don’t know if he had have ironed the consistency issues out.
Feel like Diaby is becoming greater as the years go by. I remember when we actually did see him play how frustrating and inconstant he was.
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definitely some romanticised revisionism going on
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He was massively inconsistent. His decision making was really frustrating. He would hold on to the ball too long or dribble into trouble ALL the time.
Thing is, if he’d been injury free then I believe he would have matured past those flaws and developed into an absolute Yaya Toure / Vieira level monster. But we will never know.
We all remember that performance at Anfield where he absolutely dominated. Still to this day remains one of my favourite individual player performances ever.
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Thank you, these my early days watching and I remember it clearly, any 10/10 game he had where he was unstoppable was followed by a bunch of 4’s or 5/10’s where he was average and error prone.
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Nothing to add to what Sol has said really, showed glimpses of being an absolute beast of a player but injuries definitely fucked any development. Felt so sorry for the guy.