West Bromwich Albion podcaster Adrian Goldberg has been sharing his criticism for Baggies defender Branislav Ivanovic.
This comes after Goldberg recently co-hosted the latest episode of Baggies-themed podcast The Liquidator where he spoke about a number of topics concerning the Midlands club.
On the topic of Ivanovic and his performances for the club so far this season, Goldberg had this to say on the matter.
He said: “I’ve got to say, I know there are other players who are more in the firing line from Albion fans, and I’m not blaming Ivanovic for [WBA’s poor defensive form], but I mean, the man is just past it.
“I mean, he clearly isn’t capable of playing at the pace, either physically or mentally of the Premier League and when people talk about what a nice guy [Slaven] Bilic was, and how he didn’t always have his own way in transfers and he certainly didn’t, he staked a lot on Ivanovic being his man and that really hasn’t worked out and for my money, if we could get Ivanovic out of the club and save his £60k-a-week wages, I think that would be a benefit and would allow us perhaps to sign somebody else.”
West Brom signed Ivanovic back in September from Zenit St. Petersburg on a free transfer. Since then, the 36-year-old, who is currently valued at £900k, has made 12 appearances for Sam Allardyce’s side with 11 of them coming in the Premier League (per Transfermarkt).
TIF Thoughts on Adrian Goldberg’s comments on Ivanovic…
Given how Ivanovic has managed to earn himself a fairly disappointing season rating of 6.25/10 for his performances in the league since he arrived at the Hawthorns, this suggests that Goldberg is right when he says that the defender isn’t up to playing in the top-flight at a high level anymore.
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With the January transfer window now open, this gives the Baggies an opportunity to sign some new players and could look to bring in a new defender to take the strain off Ivanovic moving forward.