Part of the problem, specifically for Nathan Patterson are the following factors;
- Injuries have plaged him a bit, but seemed to always get fairly rushed back.
- He's had to adapt to the Premier league in a struggling team, with no way, or a poor way of playing.
- He hasn't that the chance to adapt gradually, even if we were a mid-table team we would be able to give him time without it being a major problem.
- Ideally by now he'd have had almost 14 months of gametime but for several reasons he hasnt.
I think he looked good at the start of the season, we were playing well, defensively okay and creating some chances. Not perfect ofcourse, but the team looked better and so did Patterson.
He certainly needs work, he has to improve things ofcourse, but i think Dyche's defensive structure will aid that and help him adjust much better than Lampards "attacking" outlook in which players were being exposed left right and centre. Feels harsh to judge Patterson in isolation when the whole team suffered since Benitez appointment.
There is a player in there, it's just whether he stays injury free and has enough gametime to really cope and adapt properly.
Whether that player is good enough we wont know until we've seen a good solid prolonged period of time of games.