9 goals in the league in 17 starts, which is pretty damn impressive
Actually he only scored 6 goals in all those games he started, you can't count total goals and then only list games started, otherwise a player could make dozens of sub appearances scoring every 5 games or so, very few starts and look like a world beater from such stats.
Take Macheda, 2 Prem starts, 2 goals scored in Prem - looks the business. Yet he's NEVER scored when he's started a game. Obviously that's a statistically small sample but the same applies if you scale it up to players who make many sub appearances, you can't start counting those goals in the same breath as claiming how many starts they've had while completely ignoring all the sub appearances.
If we look at Adebayor he has 9 goals from 21 starts, which surely must also be pretty damn impressive compared to 6 in 17. Plus, if assists are so important, remember that Adebayor made DOUBLE the number of assists Bendtner did last season in the league, from 5 fewer appearances (and only 4 more starts). And I'm speaking as someone who thinks Adebayor should be sold for the right price and has been full of praise for Bendtner on this forum some years ago.
To be honest, from my perspective 17 league starts sounds fine for a player like Bendtner, especially at a club with two world class strikers who would get a place in any team in the world and thus you would expect to be above him in the pecking order.
Number of starts is always a bit dodgy anyway, far better analysis is number of mins played because players can get injured after 5mins, they might get subbed at halftime or whatever. Remember in terms of goals to minutes played, Michael Owen was the most prolific striker in La Liga during his time there. Adebayor played 1878 mins compared to Bendtner's 1713 last season. So Adebayor actually has a better minutes played : goals ratio than Bendtner, and a far, far superior assists record. Plus for all the love on this forum for Prem-only stats, Adebayor also looked good in the CL statistically, with 5 goals and 2 assists from 7 starts. Bendtner? Er, 0 goals and 0 assists in the 4 games he started.
I'm not going to argue that Bendtner hasn't been played out of position on occasion, but the point is, it's not like he's really grabbed his opportunities when they have come, even literally when I think back to some of the sitters I saw him missing (certainly no better than the much-maligned Adebayor). I thought Bendtner's link up play looked good from the stands but also his first touch was terrible at times, I don't know what was more frustrating, his 10-yard traps or Walcott's continual dribbles out for a goalkick / backpasses to the keeper.