Oleksandr Zinchenko of Arsenal has come under fire from former Premier League stars Michael Owen and Martin Keown after the defender put out a’sluggish’ effort in Tuesday’s Champions League loss to Lens.
Despite gaining the lead on the evening, Arsenal lost to the French team, who are presently 15th in Ligue 1.
Adrien Thomasson and Elye Wahi’s goals helped the Gunners lose 2-1 to Lens in France; Gabriel Jesus’ goal was insufficient for the visitors.
However, Keown and Owen were particularly scathing of how Arsenal gave up the second goal against Lens, as a simple one-two caused Zinchenko to be forced out of place, allowing Przemyslaw Frankowski to sprint in from behind.
After the match, Keown said on TNT Sports: “I suppose Zinchenko just gets done, doesn’t he?
He enters far too frequently. I wouldn’t have dove in there; instead, I would have simply waited for [the Lens player] to start playing. Little one-two behind him attacks the area.
“Followed by the box’s markings. You must tick the box!
“You can’t pick out a player with that,” a player said, “I know they’re in a queue there trying to deal with the ball that is coming across.”
Zinchenko was criticised by fellow pundit Owen, who said: “Zinchenko is halfway house, is not he?
He must either approach the ball and make an impact — either by tackling, knocking the player to the ground, or doing anything else — or he must remain in place.
But he can’t give himself away that easy. Sluggish. As soon as he started to play around, he became slow.
