completely agree.
The way some of our support speak about him you'd think he was posting Yaya or Mahrez like numbers. The reality is he has scored 8 goals and had 15 assists in the prem in just over 3 seasons. Even Gareth Barry managed 6 goals and 13 assists across his 4 seasons at the club, and he was a holding mid!
I'm not here to slate the guy, but the amount of smoke blown up the arse of a guy who's contributions have been underwhelming to say the least, is incredible.
I think everyone, Jack included, would love to see him get more goals and assists.
I'm a fan of his and I think it's a perfectly valid criticism to say both that he doesn't shoot often enough and that hesitation before he shoots means he has a poor shot conversion rate. I'd never dispute this, I think it's absolutely fine to discuss, and I'd love to see him make some improvements in this area although at this stage of his career it's important to be realistic about how much improvement is possible.
I think the real bone of contention is how much we value what he does when he's not scoring or assisting and whether or not we think it's enough to justify playing him without the goal contributions.
When he's not at his best because his fitness, form or focus aren't there, he's a solid, functional, 6/10 player. He's unlikely to really let you down and he can help get the team over the line but he's unlikely to get you off your seat or really turn a game around. This was how he was much of last season and I think it made sense that he had a reduced role as a result. Jeremy's form justified a bigger role, too.
But when Jack is at his best, as I think he's been this season so far for club and country (the Newcastle game wasn't great but I'm going to write that off given what we know of the disruption to his build-up with the birth of his child - in that context it would probably have been better to not start him), he's consistently one of the best players on the pitch. He creates loads of chances, he links up well with any and all of his teammates, he has insane gravity that creates space for other people, and he works hard and selflessly in both attack and defence. He makes good decisions and he gives us balance.
I think that when he's on it, he makes our team better. For me, that's the important thing. I don't care if he's the scorer, the assister, the pass before the assist, whatever. The important thing is what he enables the team to do.
