Jermaine Jenas was far from impressed by reported Tottenham Hotspur target Lewis Dunk on Sunday, telling Match of the Day 2 that the Brighton and Hove Albion defender ‘cost his team the game’ against Wolves (BBC, 9 May, 10.30pm).
Just moments into the second half, the usually-reliable centre-half would make a mistake that turned the game on its head at Molineux.
It was Dunk who gave Graham Potter’s side the lead 13 minutes in with a typically towering header.
But the Brighton-born 29-year-old undid his early efforts when he received a straight red card for denying Fabio Silva a clear goal-scoring opportunity, pulling back the Portuguese youngster when he was one-on-one with Robert Sanchez.
Football London reported in March that Spurs’ centre-back search had them considering a summer swoop for the long-serving Dunk.
But while mistakes like this tend to be few and far between, Jenas feels that Dunk showed, in the Black Country, that he still has a lot to learn, even as he closes in on his 30th birthday.
“(Brighton) had the dominance in the game, until the turning point which was Lewis Dunk getting sent off, which I thought was an absolutely ridiculous decision on his part. He’ll know that now,” said the former Spurs midfielder.
“You can only put this down to pure panic. You’re 1-0 up and Fabio Silva is through on goal. You’ve got to back your goalkeeper; you’ve got to roll the dice and say ‘I’ve made a mistake, can my goalkeeper get me out of trouble?’
“He’s clearly pulled (Silva) back. The timing is key in the decision, to do that in the 52nd minute is ridiculous and, essentially, he’s cost his team the game.”
With Brighton still ten points above the relegation zone, Dunk’s error will count for little in the grand scheme of things.
But after a season dominated by individual mistakes and defensive instability at Tottenham, the most needless of red cards will not have impressed the Spurs bosses all that much.
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