Stats never say it all and those are just one side of the story. Although he had the most successful tackles in our team, he also had the most unsuccessful tackles, which means he went to ground too often and let players past him. And even if he had the second most successful passes (after Mata) he had the fifth highest pass completion rate as opposed to Romeu who had the highest percentage before he came off. Well I disagree there simply because that's not how the defensive system in our current 4-2-3-1 works. Even in 4-3-3, you very rarely see 2 of the middle 3 in very advanced positions; for example when we played 4-3-3, when Lampard made his runs into the box Ballack/Tiago dropped behind the ball next to Essien/Makalele and when Ballack went into the box Lamps did the inverse. Besides you are taking one of the major roles of the pivot out of the equation which is to cover for the attacking fullbacks. I think for the pivot to work properly the two need t be behind the ball for 90% of the game.