I've posted the stats in here.
We've got more minutes out of him than in four of the last eight seasons, and those three seasons he had more in were 13-14 at Monaco, 14-15 at Madrid and 16-17 at Bayern. We all knew we'd do well to get 25 games out of him. We've got 26, 24 of them being starts.
Our frustration comes when he isn't fit because our attack is so reliant on him. That isn't an issue with James, that's an issue with how we play, our management, tactics and other recruitment.
Thanks mate, I’d missed them before I posted.
- On his minutes: “As many/more than his time at X, Y and Z” is a good indication of where our expectations should have been perhaps, but the tallest dwarf is still a dwarf. Sketchy availability and that’s only likely to diminish as he gets older.
- Defo agree with your last point, which is what I was clumsily trying to address before: If we have a player that could be great for us (putting availability issues to the side for now), but to unlock his potential we need to bring in a load of other players specifically geared towards his style of play, do we go all out to recruit them? How confident are we he’ll still be around after next season? How confident are we he’ll be available for more than ~50% of games next season? How confident, therefore, are we that we wouldn’t just be repeating our recent trick of blowing a load of cash on players that are good on paper but end up being rubbish as a unit?
It is massively frustrating because we DID gel at the start of the season but for some reason it hasn’t happened at all since then. It’s an ultimately failed experiment IMO hence my POV that I’m not too bothered if he wants to do on to the MLS this summer.
I should say that has nothing to do with him going home to see his daughter - That’s 100% the right thing to do given he’s injured anyway.