Leeds United: Pascal Struijk branded ’embarrassing’ by Jamie Carragher on Sky Sports for what he did in vs Liverpool
Pascal Struijk was “embarrassing” in his attempt to make a tackle during the build up to Liverpool’s third goal against Leeds United, according to Jamie Carragher.
Five minutes after Luis Sinisterra had dragged the Whites back into the game with a lovely goal just after the break Diogo Jota restored the two-goal lead, following a pass from Curtis Jones which took out Rasmus Kristensen in the 52nd minute.
The impetus for the goal was created when Struijk stepped up to challenge Cody Gakpo for a Trent Alexander-Arnold throw-in on the halfway line, but got no touch as the ball bounced easily past him, before Junior Firpo made a similar weak attempt to tackle Jones, and Carragher was withering in his assessment of both Whites men.
Analysing the mess at full time on Monday Night Football for Sky Sports he said (10.14pm): “I can’t get away from Leeds. Jurgen [Klopp] mentioned that a lot of Liverpool’s goals came from the fact that they made Leeds make mistakes.
“But that challenge is embarrassing, it really is. And then another one from Firpo who was all over the place all night.”
Ben Mee agreed, saying: “Yeah, this is really poor. Dangling a leg, half-hearted tackle attempt from your centre-half. You don’t want to see that, the manager’s going to be going mad at that.”
Aimless
Robin Koch has been, at times, the worst offender for calamitous Leeds United defending this season, but on the night the other three members of the back four were so awful he looked positively commanding.
Struijk’s reputation was boosted significantly when he performed reasonably well in emergency action at left-back earlier in the campaign, in place of the injured and then out of favour Firpo.
Max Wober’s arrival in January, followed by Jesse Marsch’s sacking soon after, dropped him to the bench and saw a long-awaited revival from the full-back.
But with the Austrian injured on the most recent international break 23-year-old Struijk has proven to be no substitute in the centre, and he was woeful against Jurgen Klopp’s men.
Firpo, as with Koch much of the time, looks a totally different player with Wober between them, but without he was just as bad as then man next to him, with the visitors looked like scoring from every attack in the second half.
Kristensen was also very poor, and since his return to the starting XI only came about when Luke Ayling delivered one too many defensive nightmares in succession it paints a sorry picture of the options available to Javi Gracia.
It feels like everything depends on Wober currently, but if he gets back into the side and struggles to maintain the form he was in prior to the injury then the manager has huge problems.
In other Leeds United news, there are now “genuine fears” that the 49ers takeover could collapse completely.