catcherintherye
Player Valuation: £80m
Everything that made him "good" seems to have completely disappeared this season.
He got the 2 goals and I really thought he would kick on from that.
Still very early days tho.
I think theres a couple of things here.
1) The level of the team is better now. I dont think hea dropped off, but people around him are doing their jobs. So hes not a regular fish in a tiny pond.
2) There is a bit of revisionism about him last season. He didnt singularly keep us up. He scored a couple of important goals, but people have a bit of golden age thinking.
I think hes at a similar level, but its felt as quite different. Hes still charging around tackling a fair bit, but is being held to higher standards. Hes no longer a young lad who's a bit of a bonus for us in difficult times.
In honesty, the club probably havent helped him. Lampard has made a big call on him, the club have turned down big bids (which I remain convinced they have over emphasised to gain some credibility) and the lad/club have made a big thing of him being a number 10. It doesnt help really, but I also think, if he wants to kick on, he has to be strong enough to deal with this.
Last 2 games have been poor for me. So hopefully Lampard can resolve that conundrum.