After his shocking performance in Saturday’s 3-1 loss against Southampton, Sam Bryam will have Leeds United fans thinking Junior Firpo is Roberto Carlos.
Byram, 30, was making his ninth appearance for Leeds after returning to Elland Road on a free transfer in August, but despite shining last time out in a goalscoring show against Watford, the Thurrock-born full-back was far off the pace on the south coast.
Southampton scored three goals in the first 35 minutes.
Bryam certainly struggled with the home side’s quick start to the Championship battle at St Mary‘s, with Adam Armstrong‘s second-minute goal catching the Leeds full-back off guard before the Saints striker made mincemeat of him for his second goal just after half an hour.
For the first goal, Byram appeared to be completely disconnected from the game.
As shown in the image above, the left-back is well-positioned and has kept the Leeds backline looking solid.
However, it quickly begins to come apart.
Liam Cooper makes the unforgivable mistake of playing Armstrong onside, allowing the Southampton striker to rush in behind him diagonally towards Byram.
Instead of following the run, the former Norwich full-back steps forward to try to intercept the through-ball, despite the fact that he has been caught flat-footed and has little chance.
Armstrong is in behind Byram before he realises it, one-on-one with custodian Illan Meslier.
Armstrong‘s second goal saw him play with the unfortunate left-back, wrong-footing him so brutally that he collapsed.
WhoScored statistics expose Byram’s bad performance even more.
He was dispossessed four times, the most of any player in the game. He won two of the three tackles he attempted and made three interceptions, but he was also dribbled past once, did not complete any dribbles, and ended up with three off-target shoots. Surprisingly, Byram had more shots than any other Leeds player.
Leeds as a whole put in a poor performance, but major questions will be raised about Farke‘s decision to sign Byram on a free transfer if he continues to play as he did against St Mary’s.
Leeds‘ left-back position has been a source of contention for some time, possibly since Charlie Taylor departed the club in 2017.
Players have been forced to play out of position, have failed to make huge money, or have been signed without being good enough.
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