He's a very good all rounder, and massively underrated imo.
In terms of him kicking on it's small margins can make a huge difference in perception. Last season yeah he s used one goal, but hit the woodwork 4 times, probably the most in the league, an inch the other way he's sitting on 5 goals which given how deep we have our cm would be a great return. Again 2 assists - a poor return - his xA (expected assists) stat was 5 though, so again if our strikers could hit a barn door hed be sat on 5 assists, given the way the system has our cm another decent return.
All in percentiles for his position in comparison with the rest of the players thee in the league 84th tackles, 91st interceptions, 62nd ground duels won. 71st dispossessed (good btw), pass completion 59th, key passes 77th, crosses 88th, successful crosses 85th.
The metrics he drops below 50 in are passes (number of) successful passes, dribbles (amount), aerial duels won and dribbled past.
So the talk of him being bang average just looks wrong, on analytics he's a top 3rd central mid in the league and in certain categories one of the best (obviously systems skew certain stats)