Lucas Perri slaughtered over incident in loss vs Manchester City: ‘It’s terrible, what a mess’
Michael Dawson was furious with Lucas Perri’s goalkeeping in Leeds United’s defeat at Manchester City on Saturday afternoon.
Leeds lost 3-2 to Man City at the Etihad, piling further pressure on manager Daniel Farke with the Whites now officially entering December in the Premier League’s relegation zone.
Phil Foden netted the quickest goal of the Premier League season so far when he put Man City ahead in the first minute, before Josko Gvardiol doubled the scoreline in the 25th minute.
Gvardiol, who was once linked with a move to Leeds, netted his goal after a poor piece of goalkeeping by Perri when Man City had a corner kick.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Lukas Nmecha got the Whites level after the break but a late Foden winner sealed all three points for City.
Lucas Perri enrages Sky Sports pundit
Perri has been regularly criticised for his Leeds performances since arriving from Lyon in the summer transfer window.
The 27-year-old Brazilian was completely crowded out by both Man City and Leeds players when Nico Gonzalez whipped a cross into the near-post area.
The Leeds goalkeeper simply failed to get off the ground to punch the ball clear, leaving it to drop to the ground and get tapped in by Gvardiol.
Ex-Nottingham Forest and Tottenham defender Dawson was seriously unimpressed, and even yelled at the screen to get his point across about how bad Perri’s punch was.
Speaking on Sky Sports News after the second goal, Dawson said: “It’s terrible goalkeeping.
“It’s an inswinging corner by Gonzalez and Lucas Perri, you have to punch the ball away. He goes up with Nico O’Reilly to punch it, but he knocks it down and it gets tapped in from two yards out.
“Goalkeeper, you have to go and clear everything out of your goal. Nowhere near it, makes a right mess of it, falls to Gvardiol and he right-foots it into the back of the net.”
Stats behind Lucas Perri’s performance vs Manchester City
Even though he made that error, Perri’s stats against Man City were quite promising.
He won a match rating of 7.4 with Sofascore, which was the highest of the season for him.
And that wasn’t all that was good about the shot-stopper’s performance at Man City.
- Perri’s highest rating in Premier League – 7.4
- Most saves in a Premier League game this season – 6
- Most saved inside the box – 5
- Highest number of run outs – 2/2
- More touches vs Man City than any other game – 56
Stats clearly don’t paint the whole picture, though, as they cannot legislate for the mistake that led to Gvardiol’s goal.
And based on how well he played for the rest of the game, keeping out Erling Haaland, there’s every chance that Leeds could have picked up one or more points against City had Perri not dropped the ball at that one moment.
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