Joe is a much better player than people give him credit for on here, but I still wonder how and where he's going to fit into a top team. he hasn't really developed his game since he arrived at Liverpool, he's still that tikki takki metronomic passer but there's little else to get overly excited about. If you look at comparable players who perform similar roles at other clubs, almost always they are better it than Joe AND they usually do other stuff as well. We even have one at our own club who is better at being Joe Allen than Joe Allen is, and were it not for the fact that Lucas is about as fast as me I can't see how the Welshman would get in the team in front of him.
To me in answer to Si's question about what would Joe need to do in order to "prove" himself it's quite simple. He much more often than he has shown so far needs to cause goals to be scored (either by scoring them himself, playing the pass through to someone else who scores it, or opening the defence up with a pass which causes a goal as a result). And, he needs to prevent goals being scored, by protecting the back four better/putting tackles in/closing off space etc etc. In short he needs to positively influence games in our favour, rather than just being a bloke with a shirt on.
Similar players? Well obviously Chelsea don't have one as they aren't overly interested in keeping the ball. Man City don't really have one either and I think it would be unfair on Joe to compare him to say Yaya Toure, although it's true to say the City man does everything Joe does plus a billion other things. At Arsenal you have the likes of Mikkel Arteta, Wilshire, Ramsay, Santi Corzola (who is a fine player IMHO), Coquelain etc who ALL do what Joe does, ALL do it better, and ALL do other stuff as well. The Mancs have Michael Carrick who does what Joe does defensively and in a distribution sense but better. people will say "ah but Carrick doesn't get forward" but most of the time and in a meaningful sense neither does Joe. They also have Herriera who is like Joe Allen with goals thrown in as an add on extra (I don't really rate Herriera but he's a better player than Joe at the moment IMHO).
So no, what Joe Allen currently offers us or any other top team isn't enough. Not saying he can't so it, but so far he definitely hasn't.
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