By William Mackay: While his trainer Freddie Roach has been very pleased with WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan’s recent sparring with Manny Pacquiao, I wasn’t nearly as impressed with Khan. After seeing how wide open Khan was for counters during his sparring on HBO’s 24/7 Pacquiao/Margarito episode 2, I think Khan’s next opponent Marcos Maidana (29-1, 27 KO’s) will have no problems finding Khan and hammering him with power shots.

The way that Khan and his loving fans have been talking, he’ll be able to glide around the ring like a ghost all night long without getting tagged by Maidana and knocked out. I’ve seen pretty much all of Khan’s fights and I’ve seen enough to know that he always gets tagged hard sooner or later.

In the past, it was a lot easier because he would come at his opponents more looking to throw flurries. Now, Khan is moving more and throwing shorter combinations but he’s still there to be hit when he tries to land his own shots. He’s also vulnerable to having the ring cut off on him.

Khan and his fans seem to see his win over Andriy Kotelnik as proof that Khan won’t get hit by Maidana. That’s mistaken logic, though, because Kotelnik did land a lot of punches on Khan in that fight and had his face swollen up by the end.

Maidana won’t need to land 1/10th the amount of punches that Kotelnik landed in order to get Khan out of there. Running around the ring like he did against Kotelnik likely won’t matter much in the outcome on December 11th.

The only way that Khan has a chance to win is if he stands and trades and takes Maidana out before he gets taken out. Running will only make it worse for Khan. He’s so hittable it’s not even funny.

Khan will get tagged the first time he comes at Maidana and tries to land one of his right hands or some of his combinations. And when that happens, I see Maidana flattening Khan and leaving him on the canvas.