I never said that. All I said was that he has been disappointing, and relative to expectations, that is a fair assessment. Pjanic has been the worst, relative to his value. Higuain has scored his fair share of goals, and Pjaca has yet to play (so I can't judge him).
We clearly disagree. Pjanic creates more chances for us per 90 than anyone else. And while he's been terribly inconsistent he's been nowhere near as poor as some are making him out to be, and will likely improve massively once our team settles on a set of tactics and a formation. As others have said, he's a good times player who functions best when the team is in top form, as seen by the games he has played well in, which have generally been those the entire team played better in. Add to that his 4 goals - 3 assists thus far, and he's been decent for us. Same deal with Khedira.
Where both of those two have been very poor for us, is big matches, and that is both disappointing and worrying, though we certainly have quite a number of players who can step up instead, but as we progress in the CL, I certainly do hope those two can improve, and Allegri can find tactics that maximize their effectiveness on the pitch. The Khedira of the first 3 matches of this season against Viola, Lazio, Sassuolo was excellent, making smart, well-timed runs, getting involved in the build-up play, positioning himself intelligently, even winning tackles... Then he vanished down a black hole of poor form. Hopefully he gets back his mojo. Pjanic I always expect to be somewhat inconsistent, but Dybala and Higuain both playing should help him provide more of a link between midfield and attack, Allegri needs to have him play further up the pitch so Dybala doesn't always have to drop so deep, and so our team can take advantage of his fantastic through ball ability, which Higuain has always been a master of getting on the end of.
Alves has been good for me. Surprisingly solid defensively, and one of our main chance creators going forward. My biggest problem with him was his tendency to drift inward to the midfield, during the first few games here and push Dybala out to the wing. But he stopped doing that so much in the couple games before Dybala was injured, and now seems to be improving at staying out wide. He has also shown to combine best with Dybala out of all our new signings, which is promising. It would be nice to see Higuain and Pjanic figure out how to combine well with anyone but each other, as so far they seem to have developed a good understanding, but no idea how to play with the rest of the team.
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To be fair - I kinda expect us to keep a clean sheet against the teams we came up so far.
So do I. And we have. Outside our inexplicable inability to defend set-piece plays... But I don't expect much from Alves in terms of defending set-pieces.
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