I think we need to be careful with things like this and I’m not going to encourage Enzo Maresca to publicly call out his players. But there is a fine line here and perhaps some more transparency is needed in this situation.
Calling out a player can backfire, we have seen it happen before. For some players, it can motivate them, for others it can crush their confidence. So I wouldn’t actively encourage our manager to publicly call out his players. But he certainly needs to speak some home truths to Robert Sanchez in a more private setting one to one, and perhaps be more diplomatic with his answers in public.
“I’m very happy with Robert, he’s doing fantastic with us” Maresca said after the defeat to Liverpool. “Not only in building from the back but also making saves.”
Hmmm, are you happy though? Are you really happy? Because if you are, I think you might be alone.
Sanchez should have absolutely saved that Curtis Jones winner yesterday and before that, he even came super close to giving away a goal by passing it straight into Diaz and on another day, that would have ended up in the net. There was other dodgy kick outs in this game too and generally, Sanchez was terrible.
Again, nobody is asking Maresca to come out and berate Sanchez, but I don’t think anyone is buying these words, and I also don’t personally like seeing something that is clearly untrue.
I can also understand Maresca’s thinking in protecting his goalkeeper here, and I do think it’s fair. Maybe he feels Sanchez will respond better by him making these comments. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t.
Maresca though, has usually been one to just come out and say it how it is, which makes these comments even more surprising. I have admired him for his straight talking since joining our club.
Sanchez isn’t good enough overall. Yes, he HAS had some very good performances too, and I have and will continue to call those out when they come, because it’s so important to be balanced. But overall he is just far too inconsistent and loses us more points than he gains us. He forever has a big mistake in him. He needs to be replaced, more on that in another article today.
