Manuel Pellegrini has made it clear that Felipe Anderson need to improve despite two more goals against Southampton.
The £35 million signing took his season’s tally to eight with a couple of great strikes at St Mary’s but frustratingly only sprung into life during the second half.
Many fans have been saying for some time that whilst his class is clear once on his game there remains the ability to under achieve and that was certainly the case during the first 45 minutes.
Foe all his game changing ability -as was the case last night – there’s too often an ability to misplace passes and be shrugged aside in 50-50s.
Pellegrini takes no prisoners and five changes last night with skipper Mark Noble one of the victims of his team selection.
And he made it clear after the game that whilst the Brazilian midfielder is doing well he still has to improve his game.
He told the BBC: “He loses too many balls – he will continue improving. He must understand the Premier League is difficult to keep the ball at your feet. He is a different player, a player that in every game makes important plays.
It’s not easy for a midfield player to make so many goals at this stage of the season. He can change the game in any moment.”
All bar one of his goals (against Manure) have been scored in the second 45.
I think Anderson is one of those players who is much better when he gets fired up a bit. I have noticed that sometimes he is a bit of a passenger in a game then something will happen like he gets the ball robbed off him or a player makes a bad tackle on him or roughs him up a bit and it seems to get his goat up. Maybe he is one of those players like the hulk, the opposition wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.