Lots of Leeds fans have been slamming Ezgjan Alioski on Twitter recently, after one supporter shared a clip showing the left-back playing a poor ball towards the back post when an easy pass was on.
Alioski is one of just two players who have featured in each of our Championship games this season – joint with Mateusz Klich – and has played more minutes in the English second-tier than any other Whites ace.
The 27-year-old has also been key to Marcelo Bielsa, as he has been able to change from a left-midfielder to a left-back in order to help us cope with injuries, and often buzzes around the pitch rarely missing a blade of grass.
Supporters who are not best pleased with his final balls, though, have reason to be pessimistic, as the Macedonian has played 156 long passes in the Championship this season, but has only found a teammate on 57 occasions.
Staggeringly, however, of those 57 successful efforts, 24 have been deemed ‘key passes’ by WhoScored, which is a team high by seven to star chance creator Pablo Hernandez.
Alioski has also put together the third-most short key passes of the squad with 52 – just one fewer than Klich has – and has completed 974 of his 1265 efforts, meaning less than one in four short balls fail to find someone in White somewhere on the pitch.
Fans, though, have been quick to criticise the 21-cap international…
That’s one of the reasons he was so frustrating as a winger. Wingers are meant to be able to deliver good crosses.
— Stuart Grant (@McClumsy84) April 16, 2019
That’s a basic skill you know.
Man open on the pen spot and he doesn’t find him…. Then throws his hands up in mock exasperation.
Out the door this summer.
— ????????Joe Brown???????? (@BrownJmth) April 16, 2019
he pHarrison right to be furious with him here. If this situation happens on the right side of the pitch, you can bet there’ll be a combination and a cleaner chance created.
— ETHAN (@EthanFromOnline) April 16, 2019
He’s the worst offender of it. Good player, but people overlook his poor traits.
Had this up yesterday: https://t.co/tuyZmp1QNw
— ETHAN (@EthanFromOnline) April 16, 2019
He’s been awesome at LB but he’s so frustrating at times his end product is do poor passing and finishing just seems to absolutely wack it, fair play to the lad though he’s been massive for us this season and never gives up !!!
— Burny (@Aaronburnside) April 16, 2019
you do wonder how many balls he’s wasted from good positions this season. We get into so many excellent areas and waste them, it’s incredible
— burdinho (@burdinho) April 16, 2019
You could put 100s of very similar clips of him up. While your at it put some on of him dribbling past players, you might struggle finding one mind!
— Jamie Richardson (@jamierlufc) April 16, 2019
He has a great engine but technically lags behind most of his team mates. Still, he’s our best left back and gets into the game a huge amount for an FB. Has improved a lot but has more to do if he is to get to PL level
— Neil. Franklin (@_franklin220) April 16, 2019
Completely agree. His quality is dreadful, but as long as he shows signs of being a psycho then that’s alright isn’t it?
— Scott Eaglen (@ScottEaglen) April 16, 2019
Totally agree, mentioned this weeks ago and people don’t see it ????????♂️
— Martin Roan (@MartinRoan83) April 16, 2019