{{primary_category}}
{{/primary_category}} 
Sky Sports pundit slams Jack Harrison as Leeds United star is 'non-existent' at Brighton
Michael Dawson was pretty scathing in his criticism of Jack Harrison’s performance as Leeds United lost 1-0 at Brighton to loss their unbeaten record.
The English winger has been the target of multiple bids from Newcastle this summer, none of which have come close to his valuation, and showed exactly why in the 3-0 win over Chelsea where he scored the third in a great all-round performance.
But as the whole side regressed on the south coast the former Manchester City man was nowhere near the same kind of factor and his influence was missed in the first defeat of the campaign.
Speaking live on Sky Sports Soccer Saturday (27 August, 5.49pm) Dawson said: “[Illan] Meslier made two or three saves that were top class to keep them in the game. The second half changed, of course it did, because Leeds couldn’t be any worse than they were in the first half.
“Leeds made substitutions, they were disappointing. Jack Harrison, big player for them last week, magnificent. Non-existent today, he really, really was. And Leeds can’t have that performance because they’re not good enough to carry players.”
Lull
Subscribe to Football Insider TV now
It was always going to be tough to match the performance from last-week’s win at Elland Road, both for Harrison and the rest of the team.
Sky Sports reported this week [23 August] that the Whites value him at over £60million, and for his importance to Jesse Marsch it is unlikely that they would even accept a bid of that size at this point.
He has started the season with the kind of consistency that star players who can command such fees do, and appears to be stepping up to the plate in a big way following the departure of Raphinha.
As assist in every one of the first three league games, plus the goal against Chelsea, is excellent form, but he suffered a down day at Brighton.
The Seagulls are proving to be a much-improved side so far this season so it is not a catastrophe to lose a game to them by the odd goal.
But as Dawson says, Marsch needs his big players to be firing every game to make a success of this season and Harrison is certainly one of those.
In other Leeds United news, Chris Sutton knew he would get stick from the fans for his match prediction but will likely be pretty smug about it now.