Tom Cleverley - Now signed for Everton

[PeterWithesShin]

Every player in our squad when playing at their best look the business. Gabby is unplayable, Weimann scores some beauties, Westwood controls the midfield, and so on. The key is that just like with Cleverley, we only see it from them in patches.

[Risso]

Every player in our squad when playing at their best look the business. Gabby is unplayable, Weimann scores some beauties, Westwood controls the midfield, and so on. The key is that just like with Cleverley, we only see it from them in patches.

From admittedly what little we've seen, Cleverley at his best is comfortably better than Westwood or Weimann at their best.

[PeterWithesShin]

I'm not convinced it's comfortably better 

[Risso]

If you're going to judge the relative merits on one goal then let's stick Zat Knight in midfield.

[PeterWithesShin]

It's not just one goal, it's an example of what they contribute, and can do, when playing at or near their best.

[Duncan Shaw]

He's gone, some are dissapointed, some never rated him anyway, some thought we had a good chance of signing a decent PL level midfielder given he seemed to be enjoying himself.  but we didn't and now he's nothing to us!  Can we close this one down now?

[Risso]

It's not just one goal, it's an example of what they contribute, and can do, when playing at or near their best.

It is one goal.  There's no way on earth that Ashley Westwood at his best is anywhere near to Cleverley at his best.

[Toronto Villa]

It's not just one goal, it's an example of what they contribute, and can do, when playing at or near their best.

It is one goal.  There's no way on earth that Ashley Westwood at his best is anywhere near to Cleverley at his best.

Ashley Westwood isn't ever scoring the goal Cleverley scored against Everton. And I like Westwood, but Cleverely covered so much ground in every game during that spell where we saw what he was capable of. For me also, the partnership being developed and understanding with Delph is why I wanted him to sign with us.

[PeterWithesShin]

It's not just one goal, it's an example of what they contribute, and can do, when playing at or near their best.

It is one goal.  There's no way on earth that Ashley Westwood at his best is anywhere near to Cleverley at his best.

When playing at their best they both do their job very well and look very good players. Which is where we go back to my original point, have every one of our players playing at their best and Cleverley wouldn't be head and shoulders over every other player bar Benteke and Delph as most of our squad at their best look very good players, but just like Cleverely they don't do it often enough which is why we tend to be a bit crap.

As an aside, and nothing to do with the convo with Riss, looking back, one thing that counts against Cleverley for me is I can't remember one game when we were playing shit where he stood out or even looked like he'd carry us, lift us, or anything. In fact he often looked the worst of the lot.

[walsall villain]

Cleverley has zero assists from the last 3 seasons, to me that's just not good enough for a midfielder.

[Lizz]

He's got married apparently - presumably there's a deal with OK! magazine as that's where I saw the photograph, whilst waiting to pay for something else in a shop. It would take a lot more than seeing Peter Andre's holiday snaps and Tom Cleverley's wedding photos to persuade me to buy OK!

[exigo]

For most of last season he was certainly no better than okay.

[pauliewalnuts]

He was truly abysmal for over two thirds of the season, very good for about half a dozen matches, then average for the rest.

His good performances were very good, but I do wonder if we are pretty easily impressed after watching five years of absolute shit.

He would have been an alright signing, no more. If I am disappointed we didn't sign him, it is partly because it's another position we are going to have to fill this summer when we have enough work to do, and partly a pride thing watching him choose to go elsewhere.

[Toronto Villa]

Not just that, he was developing a good understanding with Delph. Something that with a good pre season would have improved. Now Delph will need to create that with possibly one or two new midfield partners. Not a huge challenge, more an inconvenience when we have so many others to contend with.

[aev]

He was truly abysmal for over two thirds of the season, very good for about half a dozen matches, then average for the rest.

His good performances were very good, but I do wonder if we are pretty easily impressed after watching five years of absolute shit.

He would have been an alright signing, no more. If I am disappointed we didn't sign him, it is partly because it's another position we are going to have to fill this summer when we have enough work to do, and partly a pride thing watching him choose to go elsewhere.

I think you are right, a faint glimmer of something good and we all get extremely overexcited.