Jamie Carragher critical of Everton duo Andros Townsend and Jean-Philippe Gbamin v Wolves
Jamie Carragher singled out Andros Townsend for his role in Wolves’ first goal of the game as Everton suffered a first-half horror show at Molineux.
Everton endured a dismal opening period in the West Midlands on Monday night as Max Kilman opened the scoring before Raul Jimenez handed the hosts a two-goal lead heading into half-time.
Carragher highlighted Townsend as culpable for the first goal during his half-time analysis on Sky Sports.
“Andros Townsend is involved, and he’s up against Kilman who gets the goal,” Carragher said. “What he ends up doing is he finds himself, because he doesn’t block him, Kilman is stronger, he ends up pushing Towsend back into the line on the six-yard box.
“Townsend is in the same line as [Ben] Godfrey, Michael Keane when he should be blocking further out. That’s his role, that’s his job.”
Carragher added: “That first 30 minutes for Everton was shocking. It was really bad, it really was. Open all over the pitch, in terms of going forwards not looking like scoring.
“Gbamin really struggling, and you feel for the lad, he’s been out for a long time. [But] they had to make a change in midfield.”
Off-pace
There have been growing calls for Gbamin to be handed a Premier League start following the recent injury to Abdoulaye Doucoure and subsequent poor form of Tom Davies.
However, on the evidence of tonight’s showing, he will find further starting opportunities hard to come by in the next few games after he was hauled off at half-time.
Of course, given it was only the fourth Premier League appearance of his career after two years of injury hell on Merseyside, perhaps the Ivory Coast international deserves some credit.
However, Everton cannot afford passengers at this present time, and that’s certainly what Gbamin was for the first 45 minutes at Molineux.
Townsend, meanwhile, should know better as a vastly experienced player.
He knows his job from the corner, but unfortunately, it’s not his forte, and he was found lacking as Kilman opened the scoring in the West Midlands.
In other Everton news, a Sky Sports pundit reacted as these big-money Blues aces clashed after a big incident v Wolves.
Be sure to follow Goodison News on Facebook and Twitter for 24/7 updates on Everton and more exclusive interviews with Kevin Campbell.