by Ian Royal »
07 Jan 2017 17:45
RoyalBlue sandman muirinho
Why pick him out? Got in as many as Liam Moore, and more than the rest of the defence.
Edit - Stats from whoscored.com in case you're wondering
Probably because it's him that's fcuking backing off people all the time.
More correctly because he's f*cking off a few people who have adopted him as the club's latest scapegoat and focus on trying to identify every single mistake he makes, whilst ignoring all the good stuff he does and the mistakes made by others.
He's no where near as bad as some people make out, but he is a weak link defensively. He's ok. Nothing more.
Time and again during the game he backed off and positioned himself so the attacker could go either way. He needed to be showing players like Martial outside. Force them to the byline and if they go for the cross try to block it, if they get it in fair enough. But almost every time he allowed them to cut back inside, turning him inside out and allowing shots straight on goal, dangerous balls into the box or balls back to breaking midfielders our midfield were struggling to track.
To be fair, he was far from alone in that. And at least he was usually in position to not do much defensively, whereas Blackett seemed to often be looking lost in midfield when an attack came down his flank.
He's hardly at fault for our loss, so singling him out as particularly at fault is silly. But it's just yet another sign that he's nowhere near good enough for a team with Premier League ambitions. He's too soft. He's fine for mid-table Championship, or with top players around him a promotion push, but we need much better if we want to get anywhere seriously.
