While several Spurs stars have come in for criticism for their poor display in the 2-1 defeat at Anfield on Sunday, the two full-backs were particularly on the receiving end of some negative comments from the punditry panel (Sky Sports).
While Danny Rose was arguably at fault for Liverpool’s equaliser early in the second half, Serge Aurier gave away the penalty from which Mohamed Salah eventually scored the winner.
Former Spurs striker Garth Crooks has questioned when will Tottenham learn that Aurier is not reliable enough to be trusted, particularly in big games.
The Ivorian, who has admitted to wanting to leave Spurs in the summer (Bal des Productions), has in recent weeks been Mauricio Pochettino’s preference at right-back after he started Kyle Walker-Peters in the opening three matches of the new campaign to fill the void left following Kieran Trippier’s departure to Atletico Madrid.
While Aurier has shown glimpses of a decent performance, notably at Leicester, he has failed to eradicate the defensive mistakes and lapses in concentration from his game.
In his team of the week column for the BBC, Crooks wrote: “When are Spurs going to learn that Serge Aurier, as good a player as he can be on occasions, cannot be trusted? He is rash and unreliable.”
Spurs Web Opinion
While Aurier clearly has an abundance of talent, he doesn’t seem to have the right mentality to be a top defender. However, I feel it is too harsh to be hypercritical of his mistake on Sunday as that was quite an unfortunate foul to give away as Mane came in from the defender’s blindside.
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