Hard to give anyone a starting spot if they did jack shite for 70 minutes when they are given an opportunity to start the week before. And then do that consistently whenever they are given a league start.
Europe aside, Babel has been poor whenever he has started a league match.
So Kuyt can have 10 bad games in a row where he misplaces a heap of passes, miscontrols a heap of balls and runs into blind alleys and you are perfectly happy with the fact he retains his starting place every week despite him only having 3 good games the enitre season (WBA, Chelsea, Everton). No one seems to mind and they just bring up the "hard work" card.
While for Babel he is automatically criticised for his 1 start per month despite not giving the ball away anywhere near as much on such a consistent basis and even when he plays well e.g. against Villa he is dropped and only comes on in 3 out of the last 6 matches as sub where he looks more dangerous than the rest of the team yet you fail to acknowledge this.
Before the Villa match he only played 52 minutes in the league and after it he has only played 51 minutes, no one can really argue he deserves much more playing time than this especially with the team playing so badly and Babel providing an automatic threat with his pace/shot/cross. I mean even Jovanovic (who was frozen out) has played 250 more minutes than Babel this season, Poulsen almost 400 more.