??? Don't see how any one can use this as a criticism tbh. 1) We don't see him in training, and hardly in games lately. 2) You're comparing what Lampard turned in to at his peak to Davies at 20. If in 5/6 years he hasn't shown any improvements it might be a legitimate criticism, but at the moment it is completely unfounded imo.
Well not at the moment no. Can you name one aspect of his game that has improved since he burst into the scene? He looks to have lost the slightly aggressive edge that actually made him effective, he seems to have lost the youthful confidence that shrugged off Toure during that goal, he gets into goal scoring positions even less than he was doing in his first season.
He’s in danger of just morphing into Tom Cleverley unless he kicks on. I take your point about him still only being young but if I remember Lampard was praised by Redknapp at 17 and tipped for the top due to his work ethic. Davies has been kept out of the team by model professional Morgan Schneiderlin recently.
I say all of this as a fan of Davies. When he burst on the scene I thought his off the cuff technique was great and in the right system he could allow us to play some really fluid football with a proper evertonian in the centre with character and aggression. Last couple of seasons though all of those good traits have disappeared. He’s as cautious with the ball as everyone else now, any aggression he had seems to have gone, and like I said he barely threatens goal anymore.
He’ll be an impact sub this season and hopefully he can kick in but when he first arrived I thought I was looking at a player better than Barkley was as a complete midfielder. It hasn’t happened yet though.