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Nabil Bentaleb has become a starter under Tim Sherwood. That has a lot to do with injuries in the center of midfield, but just as much with Sherwood rating him very highly. He's started some games that Mousa Dembele has been fit for and quite a few games that Lewis Holtby and Etienne Capoue were fit for. Sherwood likes the guy a lot.
And what's not to like? He's 19, he's athletic, he's not deficient defensively, he's solid with the ball at his feet, he's reasonably big and he occasionally tries cool stuff. There's no obvious hole in his game and it's easy to see him developing into an excellent player.
But, of course, he's not quite an excellent player at this stage of his career. He's a serviceable Premier League midfielder at the absolute worse, but he's certainly not as good as Dembele, while his best games aren't as good as Paulinho's. He's very good at a lot of things, but he's not spectacular at anything right now.
To me, he's just a guy, but I assume that some people feel differently. Some people here might think he's a future superstar and worth playing in every single game as long as he's healthy. Others might see less in him than I do and think that he has no business playing in any game that two of our senior midfielders are healthy for.
So I'm posting this to ask you what you think of Nabil Bentaleb. Do you think he should continue to play regularly? Do you think he should keep a first team place ahead of the likes of Paulinho and Dembele? Or do you think he has no business in the first team? Vote and discuss away.
