SWP was a great player for City. When he left for Chelsea I was convinced that he was one of the top five wingers in Europe.
He's been unlucky on two counts. Firstly, being at two clubs when the spending meant horrendous competition with, genuinely, some of the best players in the world.
And secondly, football at the very top level has developed over the last 5 years in ways that don't suit his strengths.
First he had the ultra team/unit orientated regime of Mourinho where losing the ball was a crime and isolating full backs (at least not unless you were a full back yourself) was not part of the plan.
Then came the recognition that the best way to play football is the Barca model, where possession is king and fast passing and killer first touch is much more prized than beating a player.
And none of that suits his game. A game that he was exceptional at at one point and remains decent at, whilst changing slightly and adding some other bits and pieces.
If he had broken through in the Premier League five or ten years earlier he would, imo, have been an absolute superstar and one of the first names on the England teamsheet.
Some great memories though. A less extreme version of the surge and excitement of Kinkladze picking up the ball occurred when he got it during the last three years of his first spell. Probably the only thing worth looking forward to for some of that time was SWP giving a proper, old fashioned roasting to a full back. The likes of Cole and Bridge (who it is hard to believe was rated back then) were given genuine chasings by SWP, along with others.
I don't buy into people moaning about contracts and others stuff. It's periphery stuff.
(Funnily enough, and I don't know why, to me there has always seemed to be a very, very small hardcore that were anti SWP. Some tosser used to phone GMR every week during his first spell here, when he was ripping up defenders, banging on about "the myth of SWP" and slaughtering him. I don't know what game he was watching or what his angle was)
