Navas isn’t a typical winger, he’s much better in possession than a usual winger, his first touch and passing ability mean he can play alongside Silva, Nasri and Yaya and not look out of place. However, the sacrifice for this is that he’s not tricky in the sense that he’s not going to dribble at the fullback, throw a trick and go past him. If he gets half a yard he might knock the ball past the opponent and chase it, but he’s not a Hazard/Sanchez/Giggs type player. This clearly frustrates a lot of the crowd as they simply expect wingers to run at and beat the fullback every time they get the ball.
His crossing also seems to frustrate the crowd, but because we play a system based on retaining possession, Pellegrini wouldn’t be too happy if Navas was playing percentage balls into the box, i.e. knocking it into a dangerous area and hoping for the best. As such, he only tends to cross the ball if he can see an opportunity to find a blue shirt. This results in him seeming to find half a yard and then cutting back. Yesterday his crossing was poor, but like everyone he’ll have off days. However, at least he was an outlet, he may not have produced a decent end product very often, but at least he was creating the opportunity to do something. Silva was marked out of the game, one of his best skills is usually finding pockets of space but yesterday he really struggled, due mainly to Arsenal leaving no room between midfield and defence. Milner offered nothing down the left and was rightly replaced at half time and Aguero clearly wasn't fit as his movement was nothing like it usually is, he wasn’t running channels, he wasn’t dragging defenders away creating space, he just seemed to be waiting for a chance to present itself.
