Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
I think we all know what arteta hoped he could get out of him. And that he hasn't seen it yet.

It's all down to sterling himself. He is a fine player, comfortably good enough to provide a real threat for us if he can get himself properly fit and focused.

We have to wait and see if he has another season in him. Or has he just had enough and all we've done is replaced Willian.

I agree it is to early to judge. But if he isn't contributing by Christmas then it hasn't really been worth the gamble.
?din's injury, and MnM's, has meant we've been all over the shop, having to play a sort of forfahtoo with Kai and Leo as twin false 9s. It's taken a while for Gabby M to get back to top form which, thank Ganpati, he now has {though it's coincided with Leo losing his.}

We haven't been able to actually play the Dec-MnM-?din MF with Cala as the inverted LB in a box defence, MnM being a GX style left-8, with his ability to win duels, interchange with Dec and use his height both at set pieces and for hoofs upfield meaning the opponents have to worry about both him and Kai as outlets and having Gabby, ?din and B to win the 2nd ball when one of the big two win the first.

We saw the best of Gabby when he had GX and Zinny playing every match and MnM and Cala are upgrades - they just need to learn to play with each other. {As Arseblog said, MnM and ?din have that understanding already from their season together in Spain.}

When we have all that working, then we can see what Raheem gives us as an option from the bench to try to mix things up.