The Chelsea youngster has been under fire for his recent poor form.
“Michael has been terrific for us,” he said. “I get a bit annoyed by questions about the confidence of players and whether it fluctuates.
“Let me tell you, if confidence fluctuates up and down that badly when you have a poor game by Michael’s standards I would be worried about all the players.
“I judge that by the way I judge myself. Have a poor game, what do you do? Go and play better and Michael has been fantastic.
“Michael has no fault at all over that first goal we conceded at Blackburn. Karl Henry rolled him a bad pass, that was the problem.
“El-Hadji Diouf then rolled the tackle and the ball bounced well for him. It could have bounced the other way but it didn’t.
“There were a lot of people condemning Michel for that goal and I thought what nonsense.
“It just highlights to me that they know nothing about it the people that condemned him.
“The second one was down to him because he was marking the guy who headed it so that was down to him. But he is a consistent player.
“You can imagine him putting together 20 good performances on the spin now.”
