He offers unbelievable composure on the ball. I've watched him in really competitive midfield battles, and he always seems to make time and space on the ball. He's a midfielder in the Molby/ Alonso style. I'm not saying he's that class, I'll leave it for him to prove it, but I think he has the confidence and most importantly the technique to play at the highest level. I always liked him at Rangers, and so I followed his progress when he went to Blackpool. It is no exaggeration that he was a different class, pulling MOM performances in most games I caught or read about. I was looking forward to see how he would respond to playing against tougher midfielders in the Prem, but he has surpassed my expectations. A few weeks after Man City gave us a lesson, when they played against them I couldn't believe how much he did. Against a midfield that denied us decent possession in the middle of the park he owned the ball, they couldn't get near him and if Blackpool had finished chances he had created they would have been out of sight.
He is a fantastic direct freekick taker, particularly if the kick is to the right side of the penalty box. He keeps the ball moving, but doesn't just deliver short accurate passes, he feeds the flanks with penetrating passes, and he glides forward into space. His biggest asset is composure, playing the game with his head up, all of the time, and unlike some players, very rarely gets caught in possession whilst scanning for the pass, as Xabi often did in his first seasons here.
On the negatives, he isn't a DM, he won't eat up the ground to make a tackle. If we buy him, I still think we need to buy a player of that ilk. I do think, SG apart, if we bought him we'd have a better midfielder than we currently have on the books, someone capable of delivering quality ammunition to our forwards. I'd also like to think that SG would be going into the box for corners and long fks, where we would have another attacking threat, as Adam's delivery is excellent.
Buy, buy buy!