I thought Baines was poor earlier on in the season, like the rest of the defence to be honest. He deserved to be dropped and Moyes went with tried and trusted. He was trying to find the right balance.
Lescott came in and surprisingly looked worse than Baines, he was all over the place by defensively and attacking wise. He just didn’t look comfortable, I couldn’t actually say why that was. He just looked woeful.
Baines has come in and looked good, he impressed me in his cameo against Chelsea and has kicked on from there. We’ve kept clean sheets, he’s been involved in some of the goals we’ve been scored and his link up play with Pienaar and Arteta has been excellent.
For me we are trying to build a squad, a competitive squad. In Neville, Hibbert, Jacobsen, Yobo, Jagielka, Lescott, Baines and Valente we have competition and some very talented players in there. If one of them gets there chance and does well they should stay in the side. Then whoever there keeping out has to work twice as hard to get there place back.
It’s the way forward in my opinion, you shouldn’t just be in the team because of your individual qualities and who your are. You should be in there on merit, if the player is performing them he should play, simple as really. Don’t change a winning formula, don’t change a formula that one the whole is working well.
I hope that’s how Moyes sees it, bar one or two players who we simply can’t drop (Cahill, Arteta, Pienaar) etc. It’s about building a competitive squad and at the moment Baines is doing well, he should stay in the side.
