Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink has blasted Leeds United left-back Barry Douglas for not defending well enough in the build-up to Chris Basham’s goal on Saturday.
Basham’s second-half strike was enough to secure a 1-0 win for Sheffield United at Elland Road, which sent Chris Wilder’s men above their Yorkshire rivals up to second in the Championship table.
Liam Cooper received most of the blame for Sheffield United’s goal when he failed to secure the ball under pressure from Billy Sharp.
Sharp then played the ball into an unmarked Basham, who scored just just outside the penalty area.
Hasselbaink believes that if Douglas had been more aware, then he would have been able to stop Basham from scoring.
“Douglas, if you’re a left-back, that’s your danger, Basham is going and you need to be really close to him. He’s falling asleep,” said Hasselbaink on Sky Sports Main Event after the game [Saturday, 02:41pm].
The ex-Leeds striker added: “The Leeds player [Cooper] doesn’t have the ball yet, so the left-back has to secure Basham first, before he has control over the ball. When he has control of the ball, then he can go.
“He needs to [read the danger earlier].”
OPINION
It just goes to show that Ezgjan Alioski is the better option for Leeds United at left-back than Douglas. The Scottish flyer, who was signed for £3million [Sky Sports] from Wolves in the summer, has not started a game in the Championship since New Year’s Day. He has had injuries in that time, but Alioski has also been a class above him at left-back. It was perhaps a mistake by Marcelo Bielsa to take Jack Harrison off in the second-half, replace him with Douglas so Alioski could push forward. If he wanted to take Harrison off then he should have done so for Jack Clarke and keep Alioski at left-back. You can guarantee that the hardworking Macedonia international would have tracked back and stopped Basham from scoring if he was still playing at left-back. He has been playing so well lately, running non-stop for 90 minutes in every game. He would not have switched off the way that Douglas did.