By William Mackay: Amir Khan’s trainer Freddie Roach wants him not to spend as much time on the ropes in his rematch against IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (30-1-1, 15 KO’s) and use the right uppercut more often than in the first fight last December.

Roach thinks Peterson fought above his game last time out, and he feels that’s why he got the win. It looks like Roach hasn’t paid much attention to Peterson’s fight Victor Ortiz, where he got up off the deck twice to come storming back to get a 10 round draw. Had it been a 12 round fight, Peterson likely would have won because he was in control of the bout the entire second half of the fight.

Roach said to Sky Sports News “I think we [Khan] laid on the ropes a little too much. When he gets on the ropes, he has that passive defense, there’s really no counter punching off of it. Peterson went to the body and was scoring points…We [Khan] can’t get square, use a little movement so we [Khan] can get in that right uppercut.”

Khan will obviously land his right uppercut, but that isn’t going to be the end all. Roach is good explaining the offensive side of it, but he needs to come up with some ideas for what the shaky-chinned Khan can do when Peterson is countering him immediately with hard shots to the head and body. Telling Khan to not lay on the ropes and to throw uppercuts is all well and good, but what does he do defensively? Khan looked clueless last time, like a novice.

It’s scary that Roach didn’t teach him how to defend or fight on the inside. To send out a guy whose only defense is to run, shove, pull down on his opponent’s head and put him chocking headlocks all night is frankly sad. Roach is only focusing on keeping Khan off the ropes, but not saying a world about what he needs to do to keep from getting hit in the center of the ring.

Is Khan just going to shove and yank down on Peterson’s head each time he comes in close? You can only throw so many uppercuts before Peterson has figured out what Khan is doing and shuts down that avenue of attack. What does Roach want Khan to do about keeping from getting hit so much? No mention at all was made about that, and if Roach thinks Khan and can run for 12 rounds and still win the fight, he’s dreaming. Peterson showed last time out that he’s much faster at cutting off the ring compared to guys that Khan has fought in the past.

Peterson was jogging after Khan, and that made it so much harder for Khan to fight in the open ring because Peterson was finding him so quickly. I think Roach must be forgetting how the fight went. Who knows? Maybe he’s overwhelmed with all the guys he’s training and not remembering how exposed Khan was no matter where he chose to fight. He couldn’t run, because Peterson was catching him so quickly. Khan couldn’t fight on the inside, because he no inside game.

There literally was no place for Khan to turn other than resting on the ropes, shoving, pulling down on Peterson’s head and putting him in headlocks. Without teaching Khan to block punches, fight on the inside and to stand his ground, it’s just going to be a replay of the first fight with Khan taking a beating and being forced to run and foul all night long.