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“The latest on a long-list of Saints scapegoats.”
That was the response from The Ugly Inside, when discussing Southampton fans targeting Jack Stephens in recent months.
The south coast outfit may have avoided the drop, but the Devon-born defender has undoubtedly been one of the club’s more error-prone players in recent months.
He hasn’t been a regular in the starting XI with Jannik Vestergaard, Maya Yoshida and Jan Bednarek for company, but more opportunities have come his way with the former duo absent.
The Ugly Inside compares the treatment of the centre-back to how Saints supporters have treated Fraser Forster previously: “After the amount of abuse and barrage he had, he has been nowhere to be seen for the last 12 months.”
However, he did admit that Stephens has “been culpable of countless individual errors” that nearly cost the club, with those being “the types of errors which are magnified in the Premier League.”
The Ugly Inside therefore sees this as the 25-year-old’s last season at St Mary’s because of Ralph Hasenhuttl’s high standards.
Stephens has made costly mistakes this season, like a handball in the last minute against Burnley back in February which denied the Saints a precious point, with Southampton fans also clearly feeling he cannot play at this level.
See the video below to find out why the criticism of Stephens is only partly justified.
[pm-post-brid name=’two-footed-talk-does-jack-stephens-get-too-much-stick-from-southampton-fans’ affiliate=’www.footballfancast.com’]
