As Manchester City players celebrated on the pitch with the Premier League trophy in May 2012, Samir Nasri had a few choice words to say to his former club Arsenal:

“I hope they are watching me now, collecting my Premier League winners’ medal…I made the hard choice to come and fight for my place at a big club, where they never settle for second best, and I have proved it correct. I now hope the Arsenal fans can get on with their lives and forget me, they should celebrate their third-place achievement and I will focus on winning titles."

In terms of medals and trophies, Nasri has collected the Premier League title that the Gunners could not deliver – but at a cost to his own personal standing.

His time at City has been marked by under par performances and he has made the headlines for all the wrong reasons – and that does not even take his actions at international level into account. The France international was fiercely castigated for his foolish sending off against Norwich.

Shake a leg

Nasri was also blamed for the 3 – 2 defeat in the Manchester derby.

Roberto Mancini may have ordered his charges to shake a leg and show some fight out on the pitch ahead of that crucial title battle.

And Nasri probably took the boss at his word as he left an outstretched right leg wafting lazily in the breeze as Robin Van Persie’s late free-kick winner deflected off his boot and past Joe Hart into the net.

But do the statistics bear out the visual evidence of stagnation?

His recent troubles at City are a far cry from his last season at Arsenal where he seemed to grow into a player of potential world-class status.

In an impressive 2010-11, Nasri netted 10 league goals cutting in from the left flank and provided one assist. The 25-year-old, who was part of France’s much-lauded generation of 1987 alongside Karim Benzema, Hatem Ben Arfa and Jeremy Menez, was not shy of getting into the box and trying his luck, with 2.53 shots from midfield per game.

At City, Nasri still operates from the left but has lacked the thrust of old.

He has only averaged 1.33 shots per game in his season and a half in the blue half of Manchester. 

Confidence

Although his shooting has been accurate at 83.3 per cent, he has only taken six shots in 13 games this season - equating to a single goal - which reveals a player lacking confidence and authority.

The creative side of his game has measures up reasonably well at City though, averaging over 2.5 chances created per game.

But in his final season at Arsenal he was less influential in the creative stakes, clocking in 1.93 per game, something which his goalscoring rate masked.

But even despite Nasri’s reasonable chance creation rate, his number of assists has been consistently low even during his breakthrough season at Arsenal.

During that campaign he only provided one telling pass all season, and although he has improved in that regard while at City, he is still overshadowed by team-mate David Silva on that front.

Nasri might have had added incentive to prove his worth this weekend but because of his red card against Norwich, he will sit out a return to the Emirates as he serves the final match of a three game suspension.