Why isn't he good enough in your view? What are his deficiencies that make him not good enough? I'm not pretending he hasn't made a mistake leading to a goal, he probably has. As has basically everyone. But nothing springs to mind and certainly not multiple instances so perhaps you could offer some examples?
He contributes plenty when he plays.
When I look at a midfield player I ask myself 3 main questions to start with.
1. How are they contributing to the creation of goals?
2. How are they contributing to protecting our team from conceding goals an
d
3. How are they contributing in terms of "linking play", dictating the tempo of the match and allowing the players around them to flourish.
In my observation he contributes very little to the first. He also has glaring deficiencies in the 2nd.
Now the 3rd is billed as his supposed strength but based on what I've seen he isn't really elite in this area either. In fact I've seen scant evidence that our team controls the pitch or the ball more when he plays.
Of course this is all very basic in terms of analysis, but this is a message board, it doesn't exactly lend itself to depth.
To be good enough to play in our midfield, you either needs to be extremely good in 2 of these areas or if you only reqlly bring 1 to the table, you need to be world class at it.
Kovacic doesn't fit the bill and based on how sparingly he has been used by Pep across the season (just 1200 mins in the league and 500 in CL) despite the hole that losing Gundogan has left in that sort of role, Pep obviously agrees that he isn't at the required level and he only uses him when he is desperate or deep in rotation.
