Johnson has been one of our best attacking forces this season. Right at the start when Torres was still coming back from his World Cup injury, a lot of the attacking impetus was generated by Johnson. He did give away one penalty against Blackpool but has otherwise been one of our few goal threats this season. At this early point of the season, J Cole was suspended, Maxi was rubbish, Jova was coming to grips with English football and Gerrard was in CM. Kuyt had injured himself playing for Holland. We were playing Agger or Kelly at LB and consequently all our attacking width came from Johnson. As far as I can recall, Johnson then got injured himself and has been out for a few weeks now.
Why the manager would find it beneficial to suddenly criticise Johnson is baffling. Johnson has not had poor form recently as he has been injured. I cannot imagine Wenger publicly slaughtering a player like this without warrant. It just seems to be another stupid interview that undermines one of our players' confidence in themselves and the manager. Kelly has performed well but let's not proclaim him ready to usurp Johnson's place in the England squad just yet.
Hodgson seriously needs to learn when to STFU as he just makes things worse with each press-conference. He is supposed to be building up our players confidence. I do believe Shankly found that this did actually work to improve performances. Yet again Hodgson does something that confounds me.