West Brom: Jayson Molumby stinks as Ireland lose v France
Jayson Molumby was bashed by Ireland fans as the West Brom midfielder struggled consistently in a 2-0 defeat against France.
The Baggies midfielder started in Paris on Thursday (7 September) and played 67 minutes against the likes of Adrien Rabiot, Aurelien Tchouameni and Antoine Griezmann and struggled to get to the pace of the match against Didier Dechamps’ side.
Molumby completed 95% of his 42 attempted passes with 20 of them being towards Mike Maignan’s goal, but failed to complete any dribbles or his attempted crosses and was dispossessed once. Defensively he was unable to dominate in the middle of the park, winning only two of his seven ground duels (Fotmob).
Many fans were quick to criticise the 24-year-old’s performance deeming him not good enough for international football and marking him out as one of the Irish side’s worst performers, with particular focus on his inability to pass the ball forwards against a very talented France side.
Tough opposition
Although Molumby was nowhere near his best in the Stade de France, it seems unfair to be too critical of the West Brom midfielder for struggling against a midfield who plays week in and week out for Real Madrid and Juventus in two of Europe’s most challenging leagues.
You could take a majority of the midfielders in the Championship and parachute them into Kenny’s side and they would have come off second best when faced with the prospect of having to pass between Tchouameni and Rabiot.
Molumby is only 24 years old and despite having 20 senior international caps is still learning his trade, especially on an international stage and the experience of facing the French side during the break will serve him well when he returns to the Hawthorns.
There is an overall frustration from Irish fans over the lack of quality available to Kenny and therefore some of that irritation has been unfairly directed to the West Brom midfielder through no fault of his own for not being at the standard to help them in their quest to qualify for the European Championships.
Hopefully, Molumby will be able to push the criticism to one side and use the defeat as a learning experience when he returns to the midlands next week.
In other West Brom news, the Baggies made the right call when setting their valuation for John Swift this summer