Patrice Evra | 2013/14 Performances

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It's crazy the hate over here there is for Patrice Evra. There's quite a few reasons I suppose:
- the French generally love Arsenal, because of Wenger and the fact loads of prominent French players have played there, and Evra's comments about "men vs. children", which were harsh at the time but completely true, were very criticized as being too arrogant (which also was fair I guess);
- his role in 2010;
- the fact that despite him being excellent at (most) times with us, he's never been THAT good with France, and often been quite poor. I've never felt he had the same motivation with a blue shirt on his shoulders as he does with the red one, which has caused a bit of frustration with France supporters.

The concept of supporting your national team and club is lost on a worrying percentage of french football fans. There is really a clear lack of a footballing culture in the country.
 
Its a mystery why moyes seem to rank the LB as a priority... unless he feels its a quick win. I dont think he understands the level of popularity Evra has with the united fans.
 
Great runs but extremely poor delivery. It's a shame because it fecks up all the prior great work.


Not sure I agree with you. At one time he placed the ball perfectly on the 12 yard spot, but all our attackers ran towards the goal - how many people would you need in the six yard box? If United had Lampard, that would have been a certain goal. I thought he was very good yesterday, and he has been brilliant this season - our best player thus far, and his thread is almost like a tomb - just wait till he plays poorly!
 
Not sure I agree with you. At one time he placed the ball perfectly on the 12 yard spot, but all our attackers ran towards the goal - how many people would you need in the six yard box? If United had Lampard, that would have been a certain goal. I thought he was very good yesterday, and he has been brilliant this season - our best player thus far, and his thread is almost like a tomb - just wait till he plays poorly!

That's the thing he often does, hit a cross in an area where there's no one. The blame is not entirely to him because surely with better positioning our attackers could have had chances but Evra has this habit of hitting crosses without aiming at anyone in particular. He's been doing it since his Monaco days, the only aspect of the game where he's never really improved.
 
That's the thing he often does, hit a cross in an area where there's no one. The blame is not entirely to him because surely with better positioning our attackers could have had chances but Evra has this habit of hitting crosses without aiming at anyone in particular. He's been doing it since his Monaco days, the only aspect of the game where he's never really improved.


To some extent, I agree. However, as you say, the blame is not entirely with him as the attackers should by now know that he hits crosses in that area - I've seen him do it time and time again. I do think that he improved his crossing last season though. Let's see how he fares this season. Didn't he have as many assists as Baines last season?
 
Again, I thought he put on another excellent display. He is so vital to our attacking play, and suddenly his defending is close to his best. Struggled with fast players a while, but now looks to be comfortable no matter who he faces. Great energy.
 
I disagree on that part about his defending, he had a bad game defensively, especially in first half.
 
Defensively, not really good enough. A better team would have exploited that freedom on the left
 
I didn't think he was great defensively. Was caught out of position a lot. Plays an awful lot of games without respite though. Fabio will have to give him a rest at some point after the derby. Offensively good again though.
 
there's this new annoying habit where he thinks it's ok to slowly jog back into position when the opposition in on the counter.
 
there's this new annoying habit where he thinks it's ok to slowly jog back into position when the opposition in on the counter.


Huh? He sprinted his arse off the entire game trying to get back - not sure what you are aiming at here.

The out of position argument is getting old LR7 - if he contributes in attack he will be out of position if he or any other player loses the ball. It will be impossible to get back every time.
 
Huh? He sprinted his arse off the entire game trying to get back - not sure what you are aiming at here.

The out of position argument is getting old LR7 - if he contributes in attack he will be out of position if he or any other player loses the ball. It will be impossible to get back every time.


watch the game again and you'll see what I mean. it's not only this match.
 
watch the game again and you'll see what I mean. it's not only this match.


I rarely watch matches two times;)

I saw him sprint back on many occasions, but you can't expect him to do that every time. When he joins the attack, someone else must cover for him - it's only natural. He can't be everywhere - every modern fullback faces that dilemma.
 
Defensively, not really good enough. A better team would have exploited that freedom on the left

If my aunt had balls etc. etc.

It's also worth noting that Sidney Sam has been Leverkusen's best player this season (earning himself an apperance for Germnay in the process) and he did feck all last night playing up against Evra.
 
Then we'll have to disagree. I didn't see many crosses coming in from the left and he tracked back very well against a very quick opponent.

They didn't put many crosses from our left, but they didn't play too much on crosses anyway, and I wasn't talking about that. I am talking about three or four situation he was caught out of position, mainly because he was bit naive when they played one-twos, he was all over the place in those situation. Still, I think he had a good game, especially attacking wise, but defensively reminded me a bit of old Evra.
 
Kagawa playing in front of him resulted in a lot of space for Leverkusen to expose down the right. He wasn't great, but Young or Nani in front of him would've helped defensively.
 
I disagree on that part about his defending, he had a bad game defensively, especially in first half.


They didn't put many crosses from our left, but they didn't play too much on crosses anyway, and I wasn't talking about that. I am talking about three or four situation he was caught out of position, mainly because he was bit naive when they played one-twos, he was all over the place in those situation. Still, I think he had a good game, especially attacking wise, but defensively reminded me a bit of old Evra.

Even attacking left backs need a certain level of protection. If Kagawa is drifting into central areas when United lose the ball, Evra is going to be exposed unless one of the CM can cover. It's simply a trade off between a more orthodox winger (Young) who will stay wide and has the pace to track back, or having the creativity and goal threat of Kagawa who is less likely to be defensively minded.
 
Can't disagree too much with that, but we can't have Valencia on both wings. Kagawa is doing good amount of pressing high up the pitch, he isn't really our classic singer.. How would you expect him to defend with Ronaldo playing in front of him?
 
Can't disagree too much with that, but we can't have Valencia on both wings. Kagawa is doing good amount of pressing high up the pitch, he isn't really our classic singer.. How would you expect him to defend with Ronaldo playing in front of him?


You expect the central midfielder to cover for Evra when Kagawa plays. Fletcher was terrific doing this just as Carrick is great at covering for Rafael. We've lacked that cover for Evra the last couple of seasons, which I think is something that is seriously neglected on here.
 
They didn't put many crosses from our left, but they didn't play too much on crosses anyway, and I wasn't talking about that. I am talking about three or four situation he was caught out of position, mainly because he was bit naive when they played one-twos, he was all over the place in those situation. Still, I think he had a good game, especially attacking wise, but defensively reminded me a bit of old Evra.


I think Evra suffered from being too exposed in two on ones several times - he had to decide to either try to intercept, attack the man carrying the ball or move into position to block the runner on the wing. Either way, he succeeded very well in stopping their winger without much help, imo.
 
I think Evra suffered from being too exposed in two on ones several times - he had to decide to either try to intercept, attack the man carrying the ball or move into position to block the runner on the wing. Either way, he succeeded very well in stopping their winger without much help, imo.


Yeah, in one on one situation he was good, no doubt about that, I was more criticizeing his positioning.
 
Yeah, in one on one situation he was good, no doubt about that, I was more criticizeing his positioning.


Which I don't think was too bad considering he's an attacking fullback and should receive more support from central midfield and his winger than he actually got.
 
Its a mystery why moyes seem to rank the LB as a priority... unless he feels its a quick win. I dont think he understands the level of popularity Evra has with the united fans.

That's unlikely to be a concern of his, and rightly so. It's a nothing factor, football fans are football fans, and they'll probably just be a huge fan of whoever replaced Evra anyway, if that did happen.

I must say, I am perfectly comfortable with Evra at the moment, although I do still watch Baines a bit enviously. His technical qualities are exceptional and would improve our attacking options, which quite often look very one-paced and predictable of late anyway.
 
That's unlikely to be a concern of his, and rightly so. It's a nothing factor, football fans are football fans, and they'll probably just be a huge fan of whoever replaced Evra anyway, if that did happen.

I must say, I am perfectly comfortable with Evra at the moment, although I do still watch Baines a bit enviously. His technical qualities are exceptional and would improve our attacking options, which quite often look very one-paced and predictable of late anyway.

To be fair to Evra, he remains one of our better attacking facets because he does change it up and try different things.
 
Which I don't think was too bad considering he's an attacking fullback and should receive more support from central midfield and his winger than he actually got.

Well, I disagree, even if he defended alone versus two of their players whole the time, his positioning should be better at times. I just don't agree with you on his defending in last game, he simply didn't deserve too much praise for that in his last game, player of his experience should have done better at times. Still think he had decent game, but it was probably his worst performance defending wise so far.
 
Patrice is 32 years old, and our backup is Buttner, I can totally understand why Moyes wanted to bring in another left back to help share some of the 60/70 games with Evra. I know Fabio can play there, but he's right footed, and we predominantly use right footed wingers on the left who cut inside, opening up the space for our left footed fullback to overlap. I'm not saying it was a necessity, but I can see why Moyes would have ideally wanted Baines or Coentrao, and I think there's a good chance he'll go back for Coentrao in January.
 
I do like Coentrao myself. The only reservation I have against us signing him is a suspicion that he will end up being our 'new midfielder'.
 
Watching the game and thinking to myself... how can you leave so much space?

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The team is too high up. Evra concedes space down his side, in order to mark centrally, with Kagawa not too bothered about his side. Move progresses... 3 v 3, but Vidic makes a fantastic interception.
 
That was a constant theme throughout the game. That's the price we'd have to pay if we want to accommodate Kagawa on the left. If there's a quick turnover of the ball then the likelihood of Kagawa being in position to help Evra out is slim. But I did notice Fellaini dropping back into the left back slot on a couple of possessions so maybe that's something we're working on
 
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