He's not been as good as he was, but piss poor is a piss poor argument tbh.
All players are measured against other players' standards, if you say otherwise you are either naive or just not telling the truth. By saying he was better than others you are comparing them, implicitly or explicitly - take your pick.
What I believe is that his defending relies upon many factors, some which are down to him, some which are not:
1. He always relied heavily on pace as he was one of the fastest players in the league - he's lost a bit of that now and struggles to compensate, which leaves him trailing a bit more, and also leaves him out of position more.
2. He used to have Vidic covering for him - which is basically a full stop for most attackers - and even when a cross was hit into our box, Vidic or Rio cleared pretty much everything (not a bad word about Evans, but he is no Vidic in the air).
3. Our left side of midfield is struggling defensively as neither Giggs nor Scholes are good at defending.
2.