Ive looked at Babel over the years hes been at LFC and felt awe, hope, pride, frustration, bewilderment and a whole host of other adjectives and the common thing between them all, is that they cover the spectrum of human emotions from one extreme to the other. He is so inconsistent he is consistent, if you follow my meaning. He truely is an enigma, more so than any other player I can think of regards the feeling that its lack of application which is the issue, and there is a deep well of talent which he is holding back on. I make it sound like hes doing it on purpose and I dont think that is the case at all to be honest, IMO i think its been a case of natural process of gaining maturity and experience.
However ! In hindsight I believe we could not wait for a player we had invested 11.5mill for 3 years to provide consistent performances. IMO he could become an Henry, compared to Ngog who I believe has similarities to Trezquet, but how much longer are we going to have to wait? Playing Devil's advocate is Walcott any better regards consistency? Not sure, probably but not too much, the issue is can we as a team carry players like this, class but inconsistent? We jettisoned Luis Garcia for inconsistency, but compared to Babel he was far more consistent, a big game player and if he did get lost in a physical game it wasnt for want of trying but whats a short a*se going to do! I was gutted when Luis left, he was the type of luxury player we should have kept when getting Torres, the irony is that as we built a 1st 11 which was bordering world class we lost players of Luis's calibre, Crouch, even Bellamy could have been part of the squad, they should have been the marker for our bench and reserves ie you need to be better than these guys but the yanks conspired against us.
Personally I dont think Babel is the answer especially in the striker role, and im not sure the extra time has improved him compared to Ngog who is getting better, or more effective with time, so in summary I believe Rafa should have moved him on BUT I have a feeling Rafa wasnt sure whether he would get the money back to get a replacement and maybe regards Babel, hope did spring eternal in Rafa's mind either way, IMO its time Babel found a new club and we found a replacement we could make more use of....