Nigel Martyn blasts Diego Llorente after Leeds United draw v Liverpool
Nigel Martyn was less than impressed by Diego Llorente’s defensive performance for Leeds United on Monday night.
Llorente, 27, scored a late equaliser for Leeds to earn a superb point against Liverpool at Elland Road.
However, the Spain international has drawn criticism from ex-Leeds goalkeeper Martyn, who’s blasted the £23million centre-back for clumsy defending.
“Llorente at times for me, defensively, makes me a little bit concerned,” Martyn told Leeds United News.
“He is fairly young but some of the tackles he attempted – they weren’t something you’d want from your centre-half. But at other times he looks a world-beater.
“There was an attack in the second half, a Liverpool player was running at him and he did a nothing tackle.
“If you’re a centre-back, you’ve got to get something in the way of him – and Liverpool got in, he just dangled a leg.
“There were one or two issues defensively.”
Really?
Llorente’s helped make a huge improvement to the Leeds defence since he finally returned from injury in late February.
The former Real Sociedad centre-back missed a large chunk of the first half of the season due to a couple of injury issues but he’s finally nailed down his spot in the starting line-up in the last couple of months.
He’s started each of the last eight Premier League games with Leeds conceding an average of 0.875 goals per match.
In the games Llorente has missed this season, Leeds have leaked 1.6 goals per game.
It’s pretty obvious the team is defending better with Llorente in the heart of the back-line now than they were without him.
On Monday night against Liverpool, stats by Wyscout show Llorente won just four of the nine defensive duels he was involved in, which isn’t great.
However, he was up against the reigning Premier League champions so we cannot expect him to look like Paolo Maldini in every single game he plays.
Martyn’s criticism is fair – but it’s just unneccesary.
In other Leeds United news, this Leeds player’s confidence has been knocked by Bielsa, according to Paul Robinson.