Not entirely true. He played a total of 132 minutes in the Prem until Jan... Not really much of a chance to prove himself considering he was imo better than Oscar at that moment in time too, having watched him in the Bundesliga.
It can be spun a lot of ways but he let one of the most promising midfielders go, to then become the best midfielder in the world.
I think we should keep a balanced approach when assessing his handling and judgement of players and he got this one massively wrong imo.
And so what? He is measured on trophies!