I was looking back at his performance thread from the last couple of games he played. Plenty of comments along the lines of lazy, always looks knackered, selfish, worst workrate in the team, needs dropping, poor for a while, attitude problem etc.
I know those threads aren't the best way to judge a player but it's a reminder that it was no guarantee he was going to go on and fulfil his potential. Recent articles suggest he wasn't great at dealing with the pressure that came with playing at the highest level either. It's been a long time since then, you'd hope that with everything that's happened he'll be a lot more mature now, but it'll be interesting to see how or if he develops as a player.