Javi Gracia has not only not improved the team, but he has regressed it and even though some players keep on making the same mistakes game after game and keep causing the same issues, he neither changes the players, nor the system to better protect them and cover for the weaker players!
How many big mistakes should Diakhaby make in order to lose his starting spot in this team? I can count at least 6 big mistakes in each of the last 6 matches he's played, in each match he essentially makes at least one big mistake, not to mention all the smaller mistakes he keep on making that thankfully get dealt with or don't result in goals!
We went from Garay and Paulista for most of the matches last season and we were still 8th place when Celades was sacked to Diakhaby and Paulista this season for the majority of the matches and we are now 14th place!
Its not like Diakhaby hasn't made the same type of mistakes in the previous seasons, one of the reasons he wasn't featuring more was because of his mistakes, but he was such a young player that everyone though with more playing time he would improve and iron out his mistakes, but its been 3 years now and he's featured every season more than 15 times for the team, he's been given plenty of opportunities to iron out his mistakes and improve. Again even our readers here have commented on Diakhaby's mistakes for 3 years now, we all knew about them, but everyone though it was due to his inexperience, he would stop doing silly mistakes once he gains more experience, more playing time, well he hasn't improved. In fact I'd say he's regressed as he seems to be doing worse now and making more mistakes than he did in the previous seasons.
Ultimately I don't get it how all of our readers can know more than our coach Javi Gracia? How can a coach be so blind to the mistakes his players are making? The fact that I'm making an article that Diakhaby shouldn't play is evidence that our coach is clueless. If the coach addressed the issue I wouldn't have to write this article, Diakhaby would have not played 10 matches ago, but he's played in every single one of them and made at least 1 big mistake in every single one of them!
And hey maybe its too much pressure on Diakhaby, maybe he is just not tactically aware of the best position and stuff, but then why not change the formation and play with two defensive midfielders to help out the defense, do something, you can't just do the same thing over and over again and expect different results!
Either play a different player in defense or change the formation, change the tactics, help protect our vulnerable and weak defense with more defensive minded players! Play 4-2-3-1, Guedes played best when in a very forward position anyways, so him playing just behind the strikers and being able to freely move all over would benefit him even more!
The simple solution is to not play Diakhaby anymore, play Hugo instead of him and see how things go! I'm not saying Hugo is going to be automatically better, he might be the same or worse, but make the change, give Hugo the opportunity to establish himself! If Javi Gracia want to play Diakhaby even though he is extremely error prone, then play him, but put more players in the back, protect our weak and garbage defense more!
One thing is for sure out of all of this and that is that Javi Gracia needs to be sacked in the summer and Diakhaby should be sold! We need a more experienced and more established defender to play alongside Paulista. Gabriel Paulista has proven that is is very skilled and capable, but he needs a quality defender alongside him, someone he doesn't have to babysit for 90 minutes every game!