Not only playing (for now 9 successive seasons in a top 5 league), but recording some of the most impressive chance creation stats in said leagues, and of course scoring some iconic and hugely important goals in his time here - many of them against Man United (not as relevant a detail maybe but...
I've said it before but it's his intelligence, spatial awareness and technical execution that mark him out - I see no reason why these strengths won't get stronger with age/experience, which is especially great for us now he's being continually deployed in the position where he can cause most...
Looking at the concentration of his attacking contributions in the latter half of the season when he was a regular starter, there's probably a good case to be made (in hindsight admittedly) for him having been in the side from the off. His stats - assists at least - would look even better if...