West Ham United crashed to a comprehensive defeat against Manchester United at the weekend and popular pundit Danny Murphy has slammed the performance of Emerson Palmieri.
The 29-year-old left back put on an error display and he should have done better to close down the Manchester United attackers. His decision not to close down Alejandro Garancho resulted in a goal for the Red Devils and Murphy claims that the former Chelsea player was lacking in aggression and tenacity in his defending.
“What you see as this builds up is he’s tired from the run forward and his defending suffers from it,” said Murphy. “It ends up coming out left and when Man United switch the ball and it ends up back at Garnacho’s feet, what we’ll see when we go to the close-up is he doesn’t get close.
“He’s sitting off him because he’s tired, he doesn’t really have the anger, aggression or tenacity in his defending. Too easy. Look, barely a gesture to go to the ball, really poor defending.
“He’s getting the air in through his nose because he was tired and that is unacceptable. That’s poor defending, don’t make the runs forward if you can’t get back and do your job properly.”
The 29-year-old will be fully aware of the fact that he put on a disappointing performance against Manchester United and it remains to be seen whether he can bounce back strongly in the upcoming matches. He has been a useful player for West Ham since joining the club and there is no doubt that he is good enough to start for them.
West Ham will be disappointed with their performance against Manchester United on the whole and they will look to make amends in the coming weeks. They have had a reasonably good season so far and David Moyes will urge his players to step up and finish the season strongly.