A lot has been made of United’s defensive problems. We here spoke on Jonny Evans earlier this week and in that piece we noted that although Evans hasn’t been his usual self a number of players had been under performing too,with Patrice Evra being one of the most obvious.
The Frenchman is a star, one of the best left backs in the world (and on his day the best – sorry Cashley) and last season in a constantly changing back line he was the only constant. Able to be called upon whenever, it was always going to take a toll on him and as the season drew to an end the fatigue began to show. His error against Bayern Munich proved costly and he hasn’t improved much since then.
Over the summer he had a ‘mare with France in South Africa where as captain he was said to have lead a ‘mutiny’ against manager Raymond Domenech and was publicly rebuked by Lilian Thuram who claimed,
“I asked for the players to be severely punished and for Patrice Evra never to come back into the France team. When you are captain of France, there is a responsibility and a respect for the shirt and for people that you have to have.”
The whole France incident clearly took it out of him as he reacted angrily to Thuram’s comments as well as fought against the 5 match ban he was given. Sir Alex seeing this decided to give Evra an extended holiday after the World Cup meaning he started the season with no pre season training under his belt and it is showing.
Evra has been found wanting against Fulham, Everton and Bolton where goals have come as a direct result of him as well as other games where he just hasn’t looked his solid self, Wednesday being a prime example of this. He was often out of position and beaten by his man, shocking in comparison to his usual displays.
As I have already said Evra is a class apart but he doesn’t look at the races and his mind is somewhere else. Hopefully with Rio back and the back line becoming more settled his performances will improve in accordance. A fully firing Evra is problematic for most teams offensively and defensively and adds an extra dimension to our team down the left. As we’ve seen already this will be a long and hard season, so we could definitely do with all our players at their best.
Are you ready? Let’s get it on!
The poor sod is knakerred! He has probably played the most games out of any utd player in the last 3 seasons. He runs his heart out each n every game but is rarely rested! I think fergie has been overly reliant on him and people like DeLaet n Fabio should be given more game time n Evra rested. Otherwise he will be finished just like Heinze!
P.s. why oh why does fergie always play O’shite?! he has to be the worst players ever to play for utd!
Definitely he looks like he needs a break thus O’shea played today!
The thing that worked against us last season is that Fabio was injured whenever he was needed. De Laet could have been utilised though.
The thing I don’t understand is that Fergie’s success has been based on youth, pace and skill! yet over the last 3 years he has become very negative and although talks highly about the great younguns, which we undoubtedly possess, yet always plays the old guard (Giggs, Scholes, Neville) or in my opinion the donkeys (Crapstick, O’shite, Flipper and Park!
Even though we are 2nd we are an ordinary team and god forbid if we were to meet the likes of Real, barca etc in the knock out stages of the CL we will be murdered if Fergie keeps selecting his teams like this.