Ekeke
Full Member
I’ve noticed the theme seems to be the questioning of his attacking contribution, which is perhaps fair, but my concerns with him are just as much defensive.
Yesterday, crosses were coming in too easily. He’s easy to beat 1v1 and yesterday he was typically hanging about 10 yards away from his winger allowing him to cross unchallenged. He did this against Watford a couple years back and everyone had a pop at Mourinho for having a problem with it.
If he's easy to beat why does he make the joint 2nd most tackles of our fullbacks this season? He averages 2 exactly the same as Valencia, with Darmian out in front with 3.3
Shaw averages being beaten by a dribble 1 time every 2 games. Valencia is 0.3 times per match and the rest of our fullbacks are beaten more often than those 2
Shaw makes the most shot blocks (0.4), 3rd most cross blocks (0.4 behind Young and Dalot but ahead of Valencia and Darmian) and 2nd most passes blocked in the whole team behind Darmian (1.4 per game). He also wins the most headers of our fullbacks 3.6 per 90 mins.
So overall defensively he's one of our most solid fullbacks this season with Darmian and maybe Valencia running him close. But yes if theres one area where he is slightly behind compared to the other parts its blocking crosses where he's 3rd best instead of top 2 in everything else.