Probably got rid of Lennon and kept Townsend because Lennon has had years to improve at Spurs and didn't.
He obviously has some other issues.
AT, although fucking annoying, has room for improvement. I believe that if AT doesn't realise his potential he will be gone by the 16/17 season.
Stambouli is a real mystery. I rate him highly actually.
Im also a Fazio fan, but Dier has been decent. Not sure, as you say, what started it though...
Maybe as they are both just in the club and at their first season in the EPL he is bedding them in gradually. Both can speak English a bit but it still must be a bit of a barrier. They are both just settling themselves & their families into a new country, environment and culture and just found houses etc., there are lots of different factors.
A lot of the foreign players that come over take time to adapt. Some may start off great, then they are gotten used to and slack off. Some start slow, struggle to adapt to the speed, physicality and different styles of EPL football but do master it and come good.
Fazio has been guilty of playing the Spanish way out of defence, only to find he gets closed down more quickly and making bad passes. He will learn.
It takes time, Foreign Central defenders tend to take time to adapt. Meertsacker struggled first season Magnala looked like far worse than Fazio as two examples.
Actually I was thinking last night of all the teams that have been champions and how many had two foreign central defenders. Woolwich did not. I may be wrong but since they have had an all foreign CB paring they haven't won a title. Man U have had an English Central defensive pairing or one of each and Chelsea have got two Cahill and Terry.
Stambouli is till struggling to adapt to the pace and is not fit enough. He's good enough. That's probably the reason. I think they both have been used correctly.
Enough to say that we want them to play more instead of them getting lots of game time, continuing to make the inevitable mistakes - be it down to fitness/adaptation - and then being crucified as shit signings, which is the usual.