I don’t think people appreciate how much his presence negatively affects the team.
He never gets injured as he’s not brave enough to put himself in harms way often enough. He isn’t proactive, just reactive, and slowly and badly reacting at that. He didn’t predict that Harrison was gonna shank the ball into the middle of the box, unlike Watkins.
The non- header at the weekend is a perfect example of his cowardice, ducks his head fearing getting a whack. Unforgivable trait in a centre back.
He goes into tackles half hearted every time, and is totally out of position most matches.
That timid, fearfulness spreads throughout the team and they stop putting their bodies on the line and trying to block and tackle anything that’s in front of them. Tarks and Pickford look like they’ve never played before, scared to commit, every one is scared to commit and we are always on the back foot waiting for the inevitable shambles to land.
Put Mina or branthwaite in the team (and probably O’Brien) the dynamic changes, and we’re flying into tackles and blocking anything, putting bodies on the line and we’re on the front foot, dictating the game more our way and defending proactively, not reactively.
sadly, we’ve been down this road twice before with Dyche and he hasn’t learned a thing, so we’re back at square one living keanehog day yet again.