Look at today for example. Yes Doku completed some dribbles, but most times Trent funneled him to the byline or inside and Doku wasn’t really threatening for the most part. Yet the prevailing narrative is that he got destroyed by Doku.
He has actually been decent to good at defending this season yet people say he’s been a horrific defender. I don’t think this is quite true if you watch him play.
I won’t claim that he’s an amazing defender but he’s not a bad one either, he’s just a perfectly average to good defender but the narrative is that he’s a liability. It’s frustrating to see.
It’s not that he’s a bad defender when he’s bothered to make an effort defending. He’s actually pretty decent as evidenced by his matchup with Doku today.
It’s that he loses concentration/half asses a tackle a bit too much in high profile situations (see how Ake just gets past him like a traffic cone for Haaland’s goal) so it’s easy to criticize - but you’d argue he shouldn’t be switching off so much at this level.