As someone posted elsewhere (might have been on the N'Zogbia thread), he has had runs in the team in his preferred position, which have started well enough, but eventually the dummy has been spat again for some reason.
I don't remember these periods.
He's never spat the dummy out on the pitch. And indeed his stints as proper left midfielder were always short lived almost always for reasons out of his control.
Only true run was under Roeder I guess, before all this left back talk.