Some West Brom fans were vocal in their defence of goalkeeper Sam Johnstone amid ‘harsh’ criticism following Saturday’s Championship fixture.
Johnstone may be far from pleased with his performance in this past Saturday’s Championship fixture versus Nottingham Forest. West Brom drew their most recent fixture 2-2, with Forest earning a draw away to the league leaders despite registering just one shot on target at the end of Saturday’s game.
A Kyle Bartley own-goal just before half time gave Nottingham Forest their opener, while a 91st-minute strike from Matty Cash gave Forest a late equaliser with their only shot on target all game. Nottingham Forest’s attacking performance was evidently a resourceful one, however, it was likely a goalkeeping performance that Johnstone will want to quickly forget.
With Forest scoring from their only shot on goal, The 26-year-old failed to make a single save in Saturday’s game. Whoscored.com allocated the Manchester United academy product a 5.5 rating, which was the lowest rating they gave to any West Brom player in this fixture. Some supporters were even more critical of Johnstone’s performance online. One Twitter user gave the goalkeeper a rating of just three out of 10.
Is Sam Johnstone underperforming this season?
YES, HE HAS NOT BEEN GOOD ENOUGH
NO, THE CRITICISM IS UNWARRANTED
However, some West Brom fans jumped to the defence of their goalkeeper following Saturday’s fixture. Read the replies of those who criticised the ‘agenda’ against Johnstone in the tweets below.
Ratings for today:
Johnstone 3
O'Shea 7
Bartley 6
Ajayi 8
Townsend 7.5
Sawyers 4
Livermore 7
Krovinovic 9.5 ?
Robinson 9
Pereira 8.5
Robson kanu 8 #wba— Luke Rowland (@LukeRowland015) February 15, 2020
What did Johnstone do wrong?? the agenda on him is unreal
— AllNewsWBA?? (@allnewswba) February 16, 2020
Arguably Johnstone could have come to claim the cross for their first. But 3? He had next to nothing to do all afternoon.
— Dave Neale (@baggiedave70) February 16, 2020
Tbh fans like this need to get blocked off the timeline, you’re negative vibes to our keeper are wayyy to much!
— Michael Singh (@MichaelSingh25) February 15, 2020
Sorry but your lost with the Johnstone number, had one real shot today and it was a rocket, please give GK a go and then come back to me ??
— Nathan James (@nathy_james) February 15, 2020
I must have missed the times Sam let the bell through his legs to concede goals or dropped it at their forwards feet. We get that you don’t like Johnstone but giving him pathetically low scores because of that makes a mockery of your other ratings.
— mark tyler (@mark_mtyler) February 15, 2020
Johnstone 3 is so harsh, he didn’t have anything to do all game and his distribution wasn’t bad and he couldn’t have done anything for either goals
— Mase (@masonh09) February 15, 2020
https://twitter.com/LukePrice91/status/1228703799054929923
What do we think?
Johnstone’s form has been a hot topic of debate among Baggies supporters throughout the 2019/20 season. The goalkeeper hit back at criticism of himself on social media during the early stages of the campaign. However, all West Brom fans’ criticism of the goalkeeper may not be unwarranted.
The 26-year-old, who is valued at £6.3 million (as per Transfermarkt), has currently got a 6.57 average rating for the Championship season on Whoscored.com. That rating is currently lower than 15 other West Brom players’ average rating on the website for the season. 18 other Championship goalkeepers have also been given a higher average rating than Johnstone for the 2019/20 campaign.