I'm no apologist for Downing, overall I've been very disappointed in him, but I do think the nature of some of the criticism is unfair. A manager/coach doesn't just send eleven players on the pitch and say "do what you think is best". They're told the tactics they should use. If he was slinging in crosses to a midget CF then it must be because he's been instructed to- if he doesn't at least attempt to do what he's been told to he'd never get a game. Also, if he puts in a quick cross and nobody's got in the box he's criticized for not holding on to it. If he does hold on to it he's criticized for slowing the attack down and not getting any crosses in. Not sure what you expect him to do under the circumstances.
Thats actually true. Downings job was to deliver balls into the box. He did so, but our problem was there was nobody in the box getting on the end of things. So who is to blame?, Downing or the attacking players? In my opinion its the attacking players. We were very fortunate that when Downing made his first cross that the ball ricocheted off two of their defenders and went in. Therefore Downing gets an assist, it means he did his job. Don't give me this nonsense that Downings ball was ''hopeful'', if it was, all balls like that are ''hopeful''. We tended to get more men forward when Shelvey and Borini came on. And we got our just rewards because of that.
