Do some people look at a player playing poorly and decide he's automatically a poor player? I think many do. Maybe that's a symptom of the short-termism that's become a blight on our game. The thing is, there are many reasons a player might be playing poorly: they're new to a very different league and therefore style and intensity of football; they're managing an undisclosed injury; they have personal off-field problems; or they're being played too infrequently to build any kind of consistency—any one of which can cause confidence issues, which in turn only exacerbate the problem.
What I genuinely don't understand is the apparent inability of fans—who purport to watch and understand football and support our team's players—to even recognize the good player struggling amid any or all of the above distractions. Many of us saw Fred as a good player who was struggling, whereas others chose to ridicule him and give up on him as if they were oblivious to the qualities of this tenacious little player, qualities some of us could clearly see. Are the majority of fans really this clueless?
This!
When Fred was signed, let's not forget that he did not get much playing time under Mourinho and add to that the learning curve of playing in the Premier League. In my opinion or I'd hope in the opinion of fans who do have a clue, this results in a shortage of confidence and also a delay in adjustments that were needed due to a change of environment. Which in turn results in performances that are not up to par with what was expected. But that does not mean that we made the wrong decision buying him. Sometimes it just takes time and fans need to put everything into context and have some patience before throwing a player under the bus.
I also think his valuation (50 million) got some fans expecting the version of Fred that we are only now getting to see, back then. It is definitely not his fault he cost the club so much money. Inflation is to blame. Had we signed him at a price of $25/30 million instead, I am sure fans would have been more patient with him.
Furthermore, there was a reason Guardiola wanted Fred and I think it is fairly easy to comprehend how a Fred playing under Guardiola would perform as compared to a Fred playing under Mourinho. It was not until Ole came in and gave Fred time and freedom to express his playing style (which he did not get as much under Mourinho), that we started to see a better version of him. Also, it is not just Fred who suffered during Mourinho's time or Ole's time, more then half our team was subpar.
We also had to change our style of play as a team and obviously many of the passes our players were making were incorrect, but that is not due to a lack of quality always. Changing a style of play entirely and that too in the PL is a challenge of its own and does result in mistakes in the short term.
I find Fred could be more impactful in the attacking third though and I hope he works to improve this aspect of his game. But I have no issues with his style in midfield, in fact, our team needed a Brazilian like him who is not afraid to take risks and try a few nutmegs here and there for example, if it will result in a forward motion play rather than keep passing backwards and play it safe all the time which had been evident frequently under LVG and Mourinho.
Do tell