What a buy he has been, has regained the form that apparently eluded him for several years at Arsenal and has been one of our best players. He and Micah are quite possibly the best pair of full-backs in the league. Clichy not only offers enough going forward (not as much as Micah but he is able) but has been almost flawless defensively for us. His workrate is outstanding, always 100%, and he is very tactically disciplined, something probably aided by Mancini who is constantly going over defensive patterns/shape/responsibilities in training. Before the derby I was told that Nani had torn him apart regularly in the past while he was at Arsenal. In the derby Clichy played Nani out of the game so effectively he was hauled off. His pace is a brilliant asset because even in the rare (and it has been very rare) event he makes a mistake, he always seems to catch up to the player that has gone past him. To be honest I had doubts about his signing as he had not been great for Arsenal and thought maybe we should get Baines for his crossing ability which would have helped Dzeko. But we don't really use high crosses much except off some corners and our game is more ground-based and technical which suits Clichy as he is very good with the ball at his feet. At £7m he is an absolute bargain and on his form since joining is worth more than double that. People say we only buy big but we have done some very shrewd business with the likes of Clichy, Johnson, Kompany, Zabaleta, and Silva, who are all worth much more than we paid for them now. Left-back has been the problem position for us for years and years. When we got the money we bought Bridge but he was rubbish and didn't solve it. Then we bought Kolarov who had a nightmare first year and is better now but still not what we really expected. Finally we have a reliable and high quality left-back though in the form of Clichy.
I was talking about this yesterday with a friend of mine. He's been fantastic and has been one of our most effective buys.