Sam Byram replaced Jamie Shackleton, who Adam Pope said was “so good” at Millwall, but Shackleton had been named the “player of the season so far” at Leeds United.
The BBC journalist stated he “really felt for” utility player Shackleton to be benched in favor of the fit-again Byram on the Don’t Go To Bed Just Yet podcast on Monday (18 September), a day after the 3-0 away victory.
But following a successful outcome, he praised the entire back-four of Byram, Joe Rodon, Pascal Struijk, and Luke Ayling, saying that they made Daniel Farke’s defense selection difficult to contest.
Pope stated (5m 25s): “I do believe the defense was the foundation of the entire performance. Rodon was exceptional, and Struijk performed admirably.
Byram was excellent. Jamie Shackleton, who has been my player of the season thus far, should have started the game, but Byram was so fantastic, like, in every aspect—positionally, defensively, what he does going forward, when he inverts—that the defense is settling down.
“I think we’re all expecting Djed Spence to start at some stage, but Luke Ayling had one of his best performances in a very long time. He was incredibly, really good, in my opinion.
Competition
After an impressive start to the season in a variety of positions, Shackleton would have been understandably sad to lose out on playing back at the club where he spent the previous season on loan.
However, Byram, who returned on a free transfer in the summer, would have been equally difficult to leave out given his performances at left-back.
It is finally heartening that there seems to be competition for positions at the back due to great performance rather than the need to drop poor players after two years of never-ending problems in defense.
While Ayling will presumably be replaced by fellow Spurs loanee Spence when he returns from injury, he did perform well at Millwall, and Rodon’s arrival on loan from Tottenham has already proven to be highly useful.
Given Byram and Junior Firpo’s long injury histories, the club may still have made a mistake by failing to sign a left-back specialist during the summer window.
However, when the former Norwich resident is healthy, he has unquestionably looked like a workable solution to a problematic position, and Shackleton has been excellent as emergency backup.
Both of them would not have been the names that supporters would have predicted to address the left-back dilemma a few months ago, but for the time being, they are doing a fairly good job of it.
