Gary Neville slams ‘dead’ Emerson Royal for what he did in Liverpool showdown v Tottenham
Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou would have been disappointed to see his side head into the break behind against Liverpool.
Spurs were much better in the opening 45 minutes at Anfield on Sunday (5 May) than they were in their defeat to Chelsea last time out, but goals from Mohammed Salah and Andy Robertson left them trailing 2-0 as they headed in for half-time.
While the Egyptian winger impressed down the right flank, he was given far too much space by Emerson Royal and Gary Neville was quick to criticise the Brazilian for his poor marking in the lead-up to the opener.
Speaking on Sky Sports Main Event (5 May, 16:51) he said: “You see Emerson Royal, is he looking over his shoulder, does he know where Mo Salah is? No. He looked once and he doesn’t look again.
“If you do that as a full-back and you don’t look again, you’re dead. You’re done. He doesn’t know where he is, he has no idea. That’s the classic full-back mistake when the ball is on the opposite side.”
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In the opening 45 minutes at Anfield, the 25-year-old kept things incredibly simple in possession. Emerson completed 89 per cent of his 18 attempted passes and didn’t put a foot wrong when it came to finding teammates, according to Fotmob.
However, without the ball, the Spurs defender struggled to contain Salah. He won 33 per cent of his attempted tackles in the first half but committed a foul as he attempted to dive in and win possession clumsily.
When it came to ground duels, Emerson won 75 per cent of his ground duels and while that is a reasonable record, both Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold managed to gang up on the makeshift left-back.
This isn’t a new issue for the versatile right-back as he had similar issues against Chelsea last time out. The 25-year-old only won 30 per cent of his ten ground duels at Stamford Bridge and zero per cent of his aerial battles.
On top of that, he was dribbled past on six occasions while trying to contain the impressive talent of Noni Madueke. He faired better than that against Salah in the first half, but he still didn’t do enough when it really counted.
When compared to other full-backs in the Premier League, Emerson places in the 21st percentile for percentage of dribblers tackled per 90 minutes, only coming away with possession in 48.8 per cent of his efforts, according to Fbref.
He also makes errors leading to goals more regularly than 74 per cent of the division’s wide defenders, averaging 0.08 mistakes leading to goals every 90 minutes.
If Postecoglou wants to drag his side back into this contest in the second half, he needs to make a change to try and contain the Liverpool winger.
He doesn’t have many options with both Destiny Udogie and Ben Davies stuck on the treatment table but Radu Dragusin may be a better option for the remainder of the contest.
In other Tottenham news, Sergio Reguilon wants “out” of Spurs despite a recent transfer update at Brentford
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