Speaking on a recent episode of the HLTCO podcast, Dan Cook criticised Roy Hodgson’s decision to leave Eberechi Eze on the bench during Crystal Palace’s 1-1 draw with Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday.
Since making a £16.02 million move to Palace from Queens Park Rangers in the summer transfer window, Eze has already impressed during his short time in south London, despite having not scored a goal or provided an assist as yet.
However, after starting the club’s last two Premier League fixtures, the £16.2 million-rated 22-year-old found himself left out of Hodgson’s starting XI for Palace’s clash with Brighton on Sunday.
In fact, the midfielder would not feature in the fixture whatsoever, with Hodgson opting to leave the versatile attacking midfielder on the bench for the duration of the game, despite the fact the Eagles failed to muster a single shot, either or on off target, on the Brighton goal, other than Wilfried Zaha’s converted first-half penalty.
The omission of Eze was one topic of conversation on a recent episode of the HLTCO podcast, in which Cook described Hogdson’s decision to leave the 22-year-old out of the game as “a bit baffling”.
He said: “When you’ve got a player such as Eze, you’ve brought him in from QPR, you’ve spent £16 million on him, he can unlock a defence, and he sits the entire time on the bench when you are clearly lacking any sort of creativity, whether that’s through Wilfried Zaha or anyone else, it is a bit baffling.
“You’re playing at home to your main rivals, you want to see your team go and attack and try and score goals and put them to the sword, and to not have any feeling of attacking impetus throughout the 90 minutes was extremely frustrating for everybody.”
Do you think Hodgson was wrong to leave Eze on the bench against Brighton?
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TIF Thoughts on Dan Cook’s comments regarding the omission of Eberechi Eze…
From Cook’s comments, it is clear that the podcaster is frustrated by the fact that Hodgson decided to leave Eze on the bench, particularly as he felt the Palace side were lacking the attacking impetus that he believes the 22-year-old could have brought to the side.
We have to agree, leaving a player on the bench who scored 14 goals and provided eight assists last season when your team are struggling to break the opposition down, does indeed seem like a very strange move by Hodgson.