The concern is what happened to make his form drop off so severely before he left us, which appears not to have returned.
Having seen both versions of him, one the imperious commanding midfielder and the other flat forlorn almost disinterested.
I just hope we can get him back to somewhere near his best.
The last few months with us could've been anything though. Did he know that he was off in the summer and was a bit disheartened by it all? Was he absolutely exhausted coming to the end of that season, as a number of our other players were?
I'm honestly not too concerned about that, or his form since (was barely given a chance at Juventus, then entirely unsuited to how Forest play). It's low risk for us. We need more bodies in to cover injuries anyway - the alternative is playing kids, which is all fine and dandy except 1 more injury and the midfield will be
mostly kids. If he's rubbish we send him back in 5 months time. If he's good, we get a player back at a fraction of what we sold him for 18 months ago.
Then look at the potential upside when we're back to closer to full strength again. We already have one of the best first XIs in the league, maybe even the best. This puts us on to a point where we will also have one of the strongest, if not the strongest, benches in the league too .... with a manager who's more than capable of changing the entire course of the game with his substitutions.
As before - it's a low risk, high reward transfer.
