Leeds: Firpo cost Marsch big-time vs Foxes

Leeds United continued their disastrous current run of type on Thursday night time, with a struggling Leicester Metropolis aspect operating out snug 2-0 winners over Jesse Marsch’s males on the King Energy Stadium.

An early Robin Koch personal purpose and a Thirty fifth-minute strike from Harvey Barnes proved sufficient for Brendan Rodgers’ 19th-placed outfit to take all three factors from the fixture, that means the 16th-placed Whites are actually winless in seven Premier League outings.

And, whereas the overwhelming majority of the Leeds beginning XI massively underperformed towards the Foxes, Junior Firpo’s notably horrendous show at left-back solely compounded the argument that the 26-year-old is solely not ok for the highest flight of English soccer.

Certainly, being handed his first start of the season on the left of Marsch’s backline after Pascal Struijk picked up an injury in midweek, the previous Spain U21 worldwide was undoubtedly one of many Whites’ worst performers on the night time.

Over the course of his 82 minutes on the pitch, the £4.3m-rated defender was ceaselessly crushed too simply on the again, being dribbled previous by an opponent on three separate events, successful simply 4 of his 13 duels – a failure fee of 69% – dedicated 4 fouls and gave away possession of the ball 15 instances.

The £55k-per-week full-back was additionally caught out of place far too usually, together with for the Foxes’ second of the match, with The Athletic’s Phil Hay stating in his match commentary on Twitter:

“Not for the primary time, minimize open down the left. Similar trick – Firpo dragged out of place, Llorente compelled to float to cowl, Leicester work it throughout to an unmarked Barnes who has the simple job of slotting residence.”

This, coupled together with his usually disappointing metrics, noticed Firpo earn a SofaScore match score of simply 6.0 – rating him because the second-worst participant to characteristic within the match – whereas Leeds Stay journalist Beren Cross additionally awarded the defender a lowly five in his personal participant rankings, in addition to stating: “Persistently left house in behind as he roamed ahead from left-back.”

Moreover, CBS Sports activities reporter Jake Winderman acknowledged in a publish on Twitter that he doesn’t “must see Firpo or Llorente play for Leeds once more” as “they’re simply not good”, whereas James Marchment claimed the left-back appeared “massively uncomfortable” and Joe Donnohue dubbed the 26-year-old “needless“.

As such, whereas it’s true that the likes of Koch and Diego Llorente didn’t have their best video games towards the Foxes, it’s simple that Firpo’s show as soon as once more price Marsch and his aspect big-time towards the Foxes – one thing that’s changing into an all too common incidence for the defender.