Player topic: Jesus Navas (2014/15)

[Deleted member 58678]

Did great yesterday, and was voted MOTM. He set up Aguero for his goal and if the defender hadn't sliced the ball into the net and missed it completely, he would probably have set up Aguero for another goal.

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If the defender had missed it, it would have been cleared by the other one behind him; it was one of Navas' trademark awful crosses, that was only remotely dangerous because the defender somehow sliced it in from 18 yards out. Credit where due his 5 yard square pass for the second goal was ok, but beyond that his only other decisive contribution was a Silva-esque through ball for the West Ham striker.

For an attacking player he simply isn't productive enough. Navas has 4 league goals in his last 3 seasons; Chelsea's right-back has 5 this year.

He's played about 800 league minutes more than James Milner this season, almost the equivalent to 9 full games, yet has 8 assists and 0 goals compared to Jimmy's 6 assists and 3 goals; Milner is more robust, has more variety in his passing and his movement, and is statistically clearly the more effective player, yet somehow is used sparingly in comparison to Jesus.

Despite that, people still have the audacity to accuse an ageing Milner of being a mercenary for not signing up to spend any more valuable years of his career behind this kind of obscurity.

He`s our leading player for assists so far this season.

For the amount of possession we have, for the amount of starts he has, for the amount of times he gets in good positions his productivity is appalling at times. He wastes, i reckon, over 75% of everything he gets the chance to do. I doubt there are many more disciplined players in this squad though (possibly Milner and Fernandinho) and he does work incredibly hard for the team. But the amount of times he gets in a glorious position only to hit the ball at the defenders shins is alarming! His crossing is terrible for a winger. Some of his ground passing from wide is good (see Kun's goal at Arsenal and Kun's goal the other day) but his crossing...it's like the ball is too heavy for him.

He brings a lot to this team but we must get better if we want to improve. I do quite like him (i know some don't) but we do need better.

 

[CityFan94]

Navas is a good player, but I think we'll upgrade in the summer.

I'm not convinced he's good enough to be a first team regular at a top European club. An impact sub, maybe, but not a regular starter.

 

[Blue Llama]

I believe Navas was better yesterday because he played differently. Don't know why, possibly he was asked to. In the past my complaint about Navas was that his only attribute is that he is a speed machine but he rarely used it to the maximum. For Spain he goes for the goal line and his crosses are pulled back to the oncoming forwards. For us he has hardly reached the goal line before trying to cross. Against West ham he made more distance down the wing before putting in a cross or a pass. My assumption has always been that the City and Spain managers must ask him to play differently, until last Sunday.