Sky Sports have deleted a tweet after Thierry Henry and Jamie Carragher were slammed for their ’embarrassing’ criticism of teenage Manchester United defender Leny Yoro. Arsenal legend Henry joined Carragher for Sky’s Monday Night Football show as Bournemouth beat Fulham 1-0.
Prior to the Premier League match, Henry and Carragher analysed United’s defending during their 4-1 defeat to Newcastle on Sunday. Yoro, who United paid £52million to sign from French club Lille in the summer amid interest from Real Madrid, played the full 90 minutes.
The 19-year-old was coming off the back of scoring his first goal for the Red Devils during last Thursday’s 2-2 draw away to Lyon in the Europa League quarter-finals. But Yoro had a difficult time against Newcastle, who ran riot.
Although it was team-mate Noussair Mazraoui who made the error for the hosts’ third goal, Henry picked out Yoro’s reaction. “Look at Yoro and what he is asking for,” the ex-Arsenal forward began.
“I don’t know why… I don’t know what he is looking at. You’re looking at the linesman trying to see if he is going to bail you out… on what I don’t know. I don’t know if he thought there was an offside, I don’t know if he thought that someone… I don’t know.
“We all know it’s a goal. What are you looking at? I actually don’t know. I’ve never seen that before. We all know it’s a goal.”
Henry had been making an exaggerated expression, with the camera zooming in on him. Carragher responded by agreeing with his analysis and saying that Henry’s reaction would become a ‘meme’.
It didn’t go down so well. After Sky posted the clip on X, formerly Twitter, United fans took issue.
Carragher reshared the post on his personal account, adding four crying emojis. Both posts have been deleted, with Sky since uploading a longer clip of Henry’s analysis, which has been labelled ’embarrassing’, to their website.
Will Leny Yoro live up to his £52million tag? Give us your prediction in the comments section.
“Slightly uncomfortable and borderline embarrassing analysis from Thierry Henry on Leny Yoro’s role in Harvey Barnes third goal, 19-year-old defender by the way,” one user posted on X.
“I like Henry but this is nonsense,” another said. “Frozen a clip just to make a cheap joke on a young centre half. If Yoro plays for Fulham or [Crystal] Palace they wouldn’t dream of using this ‘analysis’.”
A third added: “Thierry Henry’s criticism of Leny Yoro is completely unwarranted. He’s a teenager learning his craft. This kind of ‘analysis’ is just lazy and unhelpful. Carragher deleted his tweet mocking Yoro. Clowns, the lot of them.”
Another fan recalled Henry’s praise for Yoro last year. “This is proper pathetic from all involved,” they wrote. “A year ago, Henry said ‘what he is doing is extraordinary’ about Yoro, and now he’s bashing him for nothing. Punditry in the toilet these days.”
During his time as France under-21 manager, Henry told Le Petit Lillois: “We often talk about Leny. He is having an exemplary start to his career. To establish himself in Lille as he is doing… He always has some young reactions, and that is completely normal.
“It comes slowly, you make mistakes and sometimes you get embarrassed. (But) he goes on to play one match after another, he starts quite often and quite often is good. It’s really good for him.
“He is professional, he’s a good guy, well-educated. I like him. He performs well. Afterwards, there are always things to refine, but that’s completely normal. Frankly, it’s really a more than positive progression.”
Yoro had a challenging start to life at Old Trafford, suffering an ankle injury in pre-season which ruled him out until December. The Frenchman has since established himself as a regular starter and will be desperate to prove his critics wrong when Ruben Amorim’s side face Lyon in the second leg at home on Thursday.
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