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Zaha shows defensively he's not good enough for Spurs


Asleep Wilfred Zaha was at fault for Liverpool's winner

Zaha-shows-defensively-he's-not-good-enough-for-Spurs
Asleep Zaha was at fault for Liverpool's winner

The Liverpool victory over Crystal Palace highlighted why Wilfred Zaha is not worth the money being suggested we should pay for him. Zaha showed defensively he is not good enough for Spurs.

Yes he has ability going forward, yes he creates and creates problems, but so does Erik Lamela. Defensively though it's a totally different story.

Look at Lamela when we don't have the ball, he is putting in tremendous effort defensively, chasing the ball down, making tackles, OK perhaps he dives in too much, but you can't fault his effort.

Wilfred Zaha is currently a defensive liability, a bit like Christian Eriksen used to be when he first arrived, so there is potential for him to improve, but does he want to?

Take the Liverpool second goal. Zaha was asleep when the ball came to the Palace left and the Liverpool player was past him before he had even reacted, Zaha chased back, then fell over, play progressed and Liverpool scored.

The goal though comes back to poor play by Zaha near the half way line. Had he been awake to his responsibilities they would never have been in the position to score.

As a coach you look for the root cause of a problem and change the root cause so the resulting mistakes don't happen. The root cause of Liverpool's second goal was Zaha.


Too many have gone over the top about him in my view. Can Pochettino improve his defensive play?Can he learn from Lamela?

I'm not so sure. I wouldn't be buying him, I think there are other quality winger who will have more of an all-round game and do more off the ball.

COYS

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7 comments

  1. There is a copious amount of overrated players in the EPL, mainly the names that the esteemed English sport's press propagate on a daily basis.
    Even we can't avoid being duped on occasion!
    Interesting to note that Zaha's possession score on Squawka is worse than Dele Alli's.
    Incidentally, I've never bought into the supposition that Poch, or any coach for that matter, can 'transform a player'...of course a coach can recognise a player's weaknesses and work with that player to eradicate them and inspire confidence but ultimately it's the player's response that dictates the order of success and that depends in a large part on said player's footballing acumen.
    If you doubt my reasoning I suggest you read Pep Guardiola's opinion of Phillip Lahm in the book 'Pep Condifential' whose author went behind the scenes for a season at Bayern.
    • Don't doubt your reasoning at all, which is why I say a manager has to find what make s a player tick, what motivates him, latch on to that and the world is their oyster. If you can do that and encourage that winning mentality (a player who tries to improve himself every day) then the player will improve under your tutelage.
    • Apologies Clive my "you" wasn't directed at you personally...it was "you" the readers of the blog...mea culpa
  2. Zaha caused us plenty of problems at Wembley. He was a great outlet for Palace. He's much more direct than Eric Lamela , wether we now need him with Mora depends really on wether Mora can force his way into the side.
    For me ,like Erikson his threat far out ways his defensive fragilities and switching off once in a game isn't a reason to disregard him. He plays as far up the pitch as Son and Son is terrible defensively at tackling and heading but he's not on the pitch for that reason.
    • I think you put your finger on the problem with Zaha in that can we afford to have two midfield players on the pitch with defensive liabilities?
  3. I would seesee more in Son's roll and when we are on top all 3. Just a thought.
  4. While Lamela shows Attacking wise he's not good enough for Spurs