Former Scotland midfielder Craig Burley, who now works as an expert on ESPN, has criticised Arsenal's Ukrainian defender Oleksandr Zinchenko following the results of the recent APL match against Liverpool (1-1). Recall, in this meeting the Ukrainian failed to prevent Mohamed Salah from levelling the score and found himself under fire of criticism.
"I have always been of the opinion that Zinchenko as a defender has a lot of weaknesses. And it's not even just this Salah goal. Zinchenko is absolutely bad at controlling the ball and position when it comes to defence. In the match against Liverpool, Declan Rice saved Zinchenko in many cases, when he again had problems with his position.
As for Salah's goal, Zinchenko's first mistake was that he was already losing three or four yards to his opponent at the time of the pass. The Arsenal defender then, of course, tried to get back into the game, but he acted absolutely horribly in that phase. It was even embarrassing to watch him lazily put his foot out. So it was no surprise that Salah slipped past Zinchenko very easily. There is absolutely no fault of the goalkeeper in this goal. It all comes down to very poor defensive play.
And the fact is that Zinchenko is not a very good defender. This is one of the reasons why Josep Guardiola got rid of him (we're talking about Manchester City, Zinchenko's previous club - ed.)," - quotes Burley TBR.
Salah's goal against Arsenal "from under" Zinchenko: