What is there to see?
There are 'stats' and then there are 'stats'.
To repeat ... again ... I am not denying he has improved this season. But we all thought he'd toast this league in the first season, especially under a new manager he's has experience of before. In short he was bobbar, just as bobbar as he was during our dismal PL relegation season. He couldn't do the functions of a true RM playmaker in Slavs 4-3-2-1. or 3-4-3, because it removed his USP, the 'ping to the wing'. As I have demonstrated countless times, that is a failed strategy these days especially as we don't have the structure we had when it was most effective, i.e. a very mobile trio of sided centrebacks, wingbacks and sided midfielders on either flank who would move up the pitch in a pack and get the cross in to Billy or Leon. That's where a lot of our goals came from and certainly on our ascendancy from L1 to PL, he made the difference.
Now after trying the same old dog/old tricks schtick and not being anywhere near as successful he's tried to change his game somewhat but for all the passing (as Revolution pointed out a few years ago in this thread) he sits deep, receives, passes back, receives, passes sideways, gets it back, clips it across to George, he has his route blocked (or has no options) and it goes back to Bash, back to Egan, to Norwood again ... etc ... rinse/repeat. The ball hardly leaves our half and we are basically static. Now if that bumps the stats up and makes him Aders Iniesta to you then fine, but to me he's still 'marginally improved' to me but nowhere near the solution. And whilst he remains in the squad, we'll never break out of 5-3-2 and Wilderball tactics and still be not agile enough to plan B our game when plan A is failing because outside his usual game, Norwood can't do anything much else.
One thing is for certain, we should take the fucking hint that Brighton and Fulham made when they went up and jettison him if we get promoted because he will continue to be a fucking liability against far cleverer, agile and mobile midfields, even in the struggling teams
pommpey