The thing about Grimes is that for the past five or six seasons he has become the security blanket for the players and for the managers alike. The biggest thing about a security blanket is that while it might help to stop someone dependent on it from falling their worst state, a reliance upon it will NEVER see them getting into their best condition.
Honestly Grimes was as much a victim of himself becoming the security blanket as anyone else at the club was, especially when he felt he needed to be responsible for covering more and more of what was clearly a madman's tactical acumen (or lack thereof) to the extent that he had no choice but to become "Statty Grimes" with the forward thinking and clever ball playing version we saw under Potter being gradually eroded away first by Cooper's obsession with shape above all else and then Martin and Williams with their completely illogical strategies and formations.
Not defending him, the way he handed in a transfer request with less than a week left to the window was poor conduct and any goodwill I had towards him has gone alongside him. Just playing the devil's advocate for why a player who used to do what O'Brien did today had regressed into what he became before he left us.
