Richards........lets be fair and honest here blues
broke through under pearce....in a poor poor team, whole squad was defencive so made his life much easier....and he 'looked' good in a bad bunch....
sven, some initial quality ball players brought into squad like corluka, started the season well and went along with the early high flying ride, as soon as form in the rest of the squad began to waver he started to look less and less like the player with so much potential and he ended the season unbelievably badly, was shown up for his poor control, bad passing and positional play, droped from england etc.
Hughes, even more quality come into the squad in the shape of Zab and Kompany, especially kompany who is a big man with very good ball skills and awareness.....richards was shown up to be even further behind in ball skills, so it was his defence which he needed to work for him....but he has been poor in this area also.....
so in truth its been:
good player - poor squad
average player - average squad
poor player - good squad
next season.........if trend continues it'll be
benched player - top squad