He's only had three proper runs in the team since he got here and they have been our three best runs in that time, the rest of the time he's been in and out of the team and both us and him have been hugely inconsistent. Last christmas when our strikers all got injured, he and Demi closed up shop at the back and we bossed everyone, then at the end of last season when we switched to 4231 and he and Demi again bossed everyone, then again at the start of this season when him and Kompany absolutely destroyed everyone they faced. Stick him with a regular partner in a settled defence and let them get an understanding going and he's excellent, throw him in with random collections of players and he panics.
He's clearly a confidence player, you can even see it in his face when something goes wrong, one mistake brings more. The last thing you want to do with a confidence player is mess them around having them worrying that they are one mistake away from being dropped. The reality is that he's never going to do well if we use him like we have been, we either have to back him and let him know he's first choice, or let him go, as being used like this is doing him or us any favours. We mess around with our defence far too much in general, it's probably my biggest criticism of Pellegrini.
