Quite successful? The opposite is obviously true. Our league form worsened after Wout’s arrival. He joined on the 14th of Jan the day we beat City at home on our 20th league game. We were 3rd, 5p off City, 10p off Arsenal, 2p ahead of Newcastle and 7p ahead of Spurs after that game.
Wout started his first game in the draw against Palace. Since then, Wout has scored 0 goals in 9 league games, we took a bunch of horrible beatings where he (and others tbf) looked out of his depth, we’ve fallen 22p off Arsenal and 14p off City and are now level with Spurs who’s manager got sacked. Only saving grace has been cup runs which, let’s be honest, aside from the Barca draw have been extremely kind to us.
Look, I don’t expect and I would even want ETH to start shitting on Wout publicly. But if he’s responding to valid criticism of him with silly arse claims, it sends the wrong message to everyone. To the other players, it says that Wout is judged by a different measure than everyone else and that there’s favouritism. To Wout, either that he’s untouchable or that his torment will have no end (neither is good). To us, he’s starting to appear as a bit of an idiot over this.
Take Wout off the firing line pronto and play Martial or Sancho in his place. Cause losing the faith of players and fans and risking the sack is definitely not worth it over Wout. It’s the strangest hill to die on.