Whilst there is absolutely no denying that Sykes was terrible on Saturday, I have a problem with how is now being treated. Sykes came to this club as an attack minded midfielder, and that is basically where he has played whenever called upon. What he does have is a good engine and can get up and down the pitch. And it appears that this has meant KR wants to employ him on the pitch with defensive responsibilities, something he has never really had to do before. His best games have always been in the attacking areas, and his high press against MK Dons was impressive, but even in that game he did not have to do the defensive donkey work.
It takes time to convert such a player into a specialist centre midfielder, and whilst it is pretty basic stuff to track a runner if you haven't been trained to do it it doesn't come second nature. KR is very quick to criticise Sykes playing out of position, but has not been consistent with his failure to criticise Clare for his numerous errors as he is allowed to learn his new full back position, one which KR now seems to have given up with but still cannot see it being a failure. KR brought on Sykes to replace an attacking player. When he shuffled again with the next set of subs he pulled Sykes back into a Centre Mid position. He didn't need to, he could have used Forde or Mous in the Centre Mid role but chose to play Sykes there knowing he is inexperienced at the defensive need of this role at such a time when defensive qualities were an absolute must. I find KR's criticism here very harsh and is really deflecting from his own failure to not put his players in their proper positions and ones that he knows what job they can do.
