I don't blame him for looking annoyed when he comes on. He's gone from first team regular who performed for Martinez brilliantly in his first season to a cameo player. Why? He's the only first team player from last season's horrific showing to have had their place taken. Seems like the club have led him a merry dance and reneged on promises. Fine if Martinez doesn't rate him but let him go if that's the case. He's an international footballer who expects to play first team and is more than good enough to play in ours.
We disagree on the value of Barry to the squad but one of the things we do agree on is that he shouldn't be guaranteed an automatic start based on history from a previous season - the decision if he plays should be based on his general form and whether other midfielders are either playing better than he is or fit the tactics of that particular game better. Surely the same principles should apply for Kev?
Mirallas started our first game for Watford but got a nasty ankle injury - sufficiently bad he tweeted about how bad a tackle it was.
Given his history last season of struggling with an ankle injury understandable that he was rested for the next match, S'ton, which Kone and Cleverley started and both performed well which probably accounted for them both starting the Man City game with Mirallas on the bench. When he knew he was no longer going to be used as a sub, Kev headed down the tunnel which isn't a great thing to do - many managers would discipline him just for that. However Kev was a starter for our next game against Barnsley, where he scored a goal but so did Naismith and the game only really changed when Deulofeu came on.
Against Spurs Cleverley and Kone were again the starters. However Mirallas replaced the injured Cleverley but we played significantly worse when that sub was made, we only started to pick up again when Naismith came on for Lukaku. Against Chelsea Besic and Kone started but after Besic's injury Naismith was first sub and promptly scored a hatrick, with iirc Kev flouncing off again after he was unused -
Against Swansea Kone and Naismith were starters, Deulofeu earning first sub and Mirallas a late sub but he made a petulant tackle and got himself a red card. The games covering his suspension were Reading, West Brom and Liverpool with Deulofeu again influential in all three games and Kone scoring against West Brom.
Man United saw nobody, starter (Naismith/Lennon) or sub (Deulofeu/Kone), perform well so the following match at Arsenal was perhaps the best chance Mirallas had of re-establishing his position when he came on with 20 minutes to go but he didn't do any better than Lennon and Deulofeu got yet another assist. Kev did however get a start against Norwich and assisted Osman's goal which probably jumped him up the pecking order about Naismith in the "what have you done for me lately" stakes which is probably why he was the first attacking sub against Sunderland. However in that game Deulofeu had 2 assists/1 goal and Kone a hattrick which made them both logical choices for starting the West Ham game.
Looking at the above list of 15 games where would you have started Kev and who would you have dropped in his place?
For me he has just suffered a perfect storm of being injured/suspended at times when other players have done well. He hasn't particularly helped himself with attitudes like walking off from the subs bench or the stupid red card - he's 28 and he should have better emotional control than Deulofeu who has channeled his desire for game time into making the most of his early substitute appearances.
On his day I think on his day Kev is one of the few match winners in our squad - he just needs to knuckle down and win a spot back by showing his talent rather than assuming he earns it by right.
