It’s not been a great couple of months for Newcastle United and while many of the players have come in for criticism, one man who has got more than most and has become a bit of a scapegoat is central defender Mike Williamson.
Newcastle have been shipping goals all season, particularly recently as the Magpies have conceded 13 in the last 3 games, and Williamson has been at fault for a fair few of them.
The 29-year-old centre back seems to be getting caught out of position all too often and doesn’t have anywhere near enough pace to recover, while despite being 6ft 4in tall, he’s still not winning enough balls in the air.
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Against Everton in midweek Steven Pienaar, Nikica Jelavic and co. were playing simple passes in triangles to draw Willo out of position and enabling the Toffees to bear down on Tim Krul’s goal.
Williamson has had a couple of decent seasons for Newcastle since his move from Portsmouth in 2010, but in this campaign it is becoming ever more apparent as to why he wasn’t starting for Pompey.
The Magpies are seriously missing Steven Taylor, who is on his way back to fitness, and I’m sure that Taylor and Fabricio Coloccini will be the first choice pairing when Steven returns, unless Alan Pardew can bring in another centre back in the January transfer window.
Many Premier League players are running rings around Mike Williamson right now and it appears that the same is being done in training by people who are a lot older and slower.
Check out the picture below that shows 41-year-old Newcastle coach Steve Stone getting in a shot past Mike…
Although Stone did used to play at the top level for Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa amongst others, surely Williamson should be able to stop him?
Steve Stone isn’t really better than Mike Williamson, but Willo does need to up his game!
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