Yeah, he's a good player and he's shown at times he can be great at that role in the middle, keeping things ticking over, but he doesn't really excel at any aspect of being a central midfielder, other than being ok at a number of parts of his play and great at turning his way out of trouble and getting the game flowing when we're playing well. When we're not playing well he's fairly mediocre and struggles to make an impression either physically or technically. Like Lucas he's proven he can be good in a winning team when he has players around him to drag the team above their level, when that's not there he's exposed for what he is, a steady player.
He's one of those lads who's clearly a good player but he just hasn't proven to be a good signing, you could say the same of players like Aquilani.