Sancho and Liverpool flop among six to lose managers’ trust over shocking FA Cup weekend
Six Premier League clubs, including three of the favourites, were knocked out of the FA Cup at the weekend. A Liverpool flop was among one player from each to disappoint their manager.
Luke Thomas (Leicester City)
Another ineffective Facundo Buonanotte cameo – hopefully while at least wearing appropriate footwear – will have done little to smooth things over with Ruud van Nistelrooy. But the Argentina international will have a part to play in the rest of this Leicester season; the same cannot be said for Thomas.
In hindsight, rejecting multiple January offers from Hoffenheim for a second-choice left-back felt like a mistake. Van Nistelrooy ruled out a sale if replacements were not forthcoming but it is worth questioning whether a player with 450 minutes in the first 28 games of a campaign really needs replacing.
Both Thomas’ Premier League appearances this season have ended in defeat (inevitably, for he is a Leicester player), he has failed to make the last two matchday squads in the league and his sub-hour outing against Manchester United was only his second game under Van Nistelrooy.
Leicester essentially turned down £5m for 58 minutes of an FA Cup loss at Old Trafford, because Thomas surely won’t play again this season with new signing Woyo Coulibaly and the returning Ricardo Pereira providing cover in both full-back positions. It’s a wonder the Foxes are perennially flirting with financial catastrophe.
Abdoulaye Doucoure (Everton)
“He gave us a different element. He gives us more options, which makes us more unpredictable as well. I was pleased with what he showed,” was the assessment David Moyes offered of Carlos Alcaraz’s bright Everton debut in the defeat to Bournemouth.
Iliman Ndiaye must have welcomed some of that ball-playing burden being lifted from his shoulders. No Everton player had more shots or created more chances than Alcaraz despite the club’s sole January recruit playing less than half an hour.
That can only reflect poorly on Doucoure, whose rapid goal in the victory over Leicester was the exception to a rule of inadequate performances in the attacking midfield role.
Moyes has spoken frequently of wanting to promote “competition” in the relatively lean squad he inherited; Alcaraz provides not only that but an ability to interchange more seamlessly with the similarly technically proficient Ndiaye and Jesper Lindstrom behind whichever non-scoring striker is chosen that week. It will either be Michael Keane or Doucoure who gets chucked up there anyway when Beto inevitably breaks.
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Lesley Ugochukwu (Southampton)
While Alex McCarthy obviously failed to keep a clean sheet, there was a distinct and unnerving lack of trademark bed-sh*tting from this season’s Southampton against last season’s Southampton who Scott Parker has actually transformed into late 1980s AC Milan.
CJ-Egan Riley and Joe Worrall have conceded three goals in 427 games together as a centre-half pairing. It is as remarkable as it is entirely and indisputably true.
Burnley hardly applied unbearable pressure on an ordinarily error-prone Southampton backline with six shots at St Mary’s, but it was nevertheless striking not to see a Saints keeper or defender surrender the ball to the opposition in the build-up to the fourth of five goals.
Even then, Ugochukwu provided scant midfield resistance against the admittedly considerable might of Jonjo Shelvey and friends. It was the Chelsea loanee’s worst performance since an upturn sparked by Ivan Juric giving him “confidence”.
The manager’s ongoing battle with the “bad situation” involving wantaway Flynn Downes and his “attitude” will likely grant Ugochukwu a reprieve in midfield but this was a clear step back.
Jadon Sancho (Chelsea)
It was a rough old time for a while there, when it seemed as though Chelsea had actually figured it all out and cracked the code to ensure perpetual dominance of the sport through the Clearlake blueprint of signing laughably young players to hilariously long contracts while somehow never signing a competent goalkeeper or reliable centre-forward.
Only the lose-lose scenario of a Conference League triumph destined to be written off by outsiders can distract from their Champions League qualification bid now as they lag behind the top three with Manchester City, Newcastle and Bournemouth all breathing down their necks.
It seems unlikely Chelsea will finish lower than 14th, thus the obligation to purchase Sancho permanently will be triggered and Manchester United will consider one of their many problems to be officially offloaded. That deal seemed sagacious for the Blues after assists in his first three games but one assist and no goals in his last 11 appearances does suggest Erik ten Hag might have had it right all along.
Enzo Maresca will no doubt be thrilled that on the back of another anonymous display against Brighton, Sancho has knuckled down to take another shot at the club to whom he still remains contracted.
Federico Chiesa (Liverpool)
Arne Slot was right to note that “these players need game rhythm” and “games like this to be ready for the last three months of the season”. But there are no more presentable opportunities remaining for the Liverpool head coach to provide such a virtue to those on the fringes of his squad.
The Carabao cannot be used so frivolously with the final on the horizon, nor the Champions League when the Reds re-enter at the knockout stage. Liverpool boast a six-point gap at the Premier League summit but even that stage is too risky to grant players cursory run-outs in the hope they can contribute when crunch time comes.
Liverpool have no more space in the schedule to establish “game rhythm” in those so clearly outside of Slot’s group of dependable starters and that affects no player more obviously than that big ‘bag of crisps’ Chiesa.
The Italy international has started three games this season, including two of Liverpool’s four losses. Chiesa has not featured in the Carabao since the second half of the quarter-final, while his Premier League season comprises 25 minutes and outside of that PSV dead-rubber, he has barely played in the Champions League.
There were far more culpable players against Plymouth, although Chiesa was undeniably poor. But in such a well-stocked Liverpool attack it is difficult to see where his next chance comes when there are no free hits left.
Rodrigo Bentancur (Tottenham)
Quite why Bentancur has taken it upon himself to personally extinguish the final hopes of a revival under Ange Postecoglou is unknown.
Spurs have long clung on to the idea that once their injury crisis subsides and players start to return, momentum will shift and their myriad problems will be fixed. But Bentancur epitomises the counter-theory that those coming back into the side after extended lay-offs are more likely to meet that low floor of performance rather than automatically raising the ceiling with their mere presence.
A goal in the draw at Wolves after his comeback from suspension suggested a midfield savour had arrived in perfect time. But few players have emerged from consecutive cup exits in five days with their stock lowered quite so significantly.
Bentancur was shamed by some for having to be reminded by teenage Lucas Bergvall, nine years his junior, that it might be wise to applaud the travelling supporters who had to endure that miserable, entirely midfield-less evening at Anfield and the subsequent hopeless journey home in midweek. The pair then started against Villa and while neither were in any way good, the far more experienced Bentancur once again had to be guided through.
Last Monday, the line from within the club was that Bentancur had become ‘a growing presence in the team and a rapidly developing leader’. Within a week he had masterfully helped guide them out of two competitions and that casual jog back as Morgan Rogers rounded out Villa’s victory was, in fairness, a player leading by quite abysmal example.
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