Evra hails United frontmen but has his priorities all wrong

The performances of Patrice Evra have long been a concern for United for United fans, but the new season has bought a new level of unacceptable standards for the left back once considered the world’s best. Since his national team’s poor performance at the World Cup in South Africa over the summer of 2010, Evra is yet to get anywhere near close to the form we expect from such an experienced and talented defender. Of course there are a few exceptions to his poor form but they’ve become increasingly rare, and trying to think of the last time Evra had two good games in close succession is too hard, even for my reasonably good memory, to remember.

For a defender that used to prize himself on being one of the most consistently impressive in the Premier League, and maybe even the world, his poor performances at the start of the 2010/2011 season were a big shock. But now into the 3rd season of his bad form, his position is becoming even more untenable, and excusing it even harder. By the end of 2011, with our defeat to Barcelona where their first goal came as a result of Patrice’s poor position, his performances were already tedious and trying to find a word to describe it now is near impossible.

The truth is, his first season of poor performances were largely put down to the fall-out suffered after the French national team’s early exit from the World Cup. Patrice was heavily lamented in the French press for having a leading role in the mutiny that saw the players go on strike and you can imagine how that acted as a distraction from his football – many suggested that once it had all blown over and settled, Evra would be able to concentrate once again on his club duties. Equally, with Evra remaining one of the most played players at United it was feasible to suggest he was jaded and would benefit greatly from the much-needed rest over the summer break.

But unfortunately none of these seemed to make a difference and heading into last season, Evra continued his poor run of form. Again, the racism saga he suffered from with Luis Suarez acted as a distraction but even before and after the incident he still wasn’t up to standard. I don’t have a problem with players making the odd mistake, but when they so consistently and arrogantly do so, it’s not good enough. I could name numerous occasions where Evra cost us goals and subsequently points last season. Even though we’re only just into the new season, there have been incidents where he’s cost us goals again this year – most recently last night against FC Cluj.

We saw the laziness that is now so frequent with Evra at work again, as his defensive positioning and lack of ambition to get back into position put us one nil down. Thankfully it didn’t cost us in the end but it came close to it but, on another day against stronger opposition, it would have. Yet the most baffling thing about it all is that he’s still consistently picked by Sir Alex. In seasons gone by it could have been excused because aside from Fabio, we lacked any natural left back cover but now we’ve got Alexander Büttner waiting in the ranks who has impressed when he’s been given the chance in the reserves and in the first team against Wigan. I’m not one to get overexcited by any player but it’s pretty obvious that at the moment he couldn’t do any worse than Evra.

Nonetheless though, assuming Büttner does get given the chance he deserves over the coming fixtures, weave got a serious problem with Evra and the only possibly explanation is Evra has lost it. Whispers from around the club suggested Fergie thinks Evra has gone mad after he tried persuading Sir Alex to start playing him as a winger instead of a fullback; and judging by the sheer arrogance of Evra in his play and the fact he remains oblivious to the fact he’s making mistakes makes you believe it. If a player made similar mistakes so often, you’d really think that he’d correct them or, at very least, acknowledge them. Evra is seemingly yet to work on correcting his mistakes, despite having relatively fixes – focussing on positioning a bit more, running back a lot faster, or simply not bombing forward if you can’t get back – all fairly basic footballing concepts.

I’ve used the word ‘arrogance’ to describe Evra regularly because I think that sums it up perfectly. There’s no doubting that Evra is an extremely talented and experienced defender but there’s this idea that he’s too comfortable. For years, he’s lacked real competition and as a result he knows he can get away with more than other players. The fact he’s yet to acknowledge his mistakes again supports this idea; and it’s either the fact he’s arrogant or has completely lost the plot. Last night he had the perfect opportunity to admit he made a mistake for the first goal, but instead chose to sing the praises of Rooney and Robin van Persie, saying “Both Wayne and Robin are outstanding players, it’s great to have those kinds of players.” Obviously there’s nothing wrong with praising other players, but it certainly seems like Evra is unable to take any responsibility.

For such a servant to the club to suffer such a demise is odd and it really is hard to tell what’s going on. After Büttner’s impressive performance against Wigan, we had an excellent chance to make Evra fight for his place, but for whatever reason Sir Alex chose to default back to the Frenchman. There’s no doubting that Büttner is far from perfect; and it ironically looks like he suffers from similar drawbacks to Evra, but it’s time that Evra realised that in order to play consistently, he needs to play well. We’ve got excellent competition in other areas of the team so it’s time we utilised it elsewhere. In the near future, I hope we show Evra that it’s not all going to go his way any more; and if dropping him doesn’t make him buck his ideas up then I think he needs to give his head a good wobble and check that all the wires are still attached.