Can Jonny Evans get some respect put on his name?

Fortitude

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Word to Birdman.

But seriously, he seems to be the caf whipping boy whose name gets dragged along the coals whenever announced despite him arguably being the best pure defender at the club, even as “5th choice” as some of you attempt to denigrate him with.

If you’re looking at CB’s here for individual errors, he makes the least. Positionally, brain-farts, stupid goings to ground for no reason, covering for partner, I’d love to hear counters to state he isn’t the best at the positives and the least likely at the negatives from the roster, so why is he summarily dismissed despite the obvious pros to his game and what he’s offering our ragtag bunch, who, let’s face it, all show they have plenty of mistakes in the comedic goals we concede?

On merit, he should be one of the starting CB’s with all the others fighting to play alongside him, but the reality is that gives terrible optics as the hundreds of millions spent on the others as well as the younger “for the future” age profiles of the others assures that can’t happen as we’re trying to forge a dependable pairing for this term and beyond, supposedly.

Anyway this should be a talking point because the criticism of his very name is daft when the clown car picks up and spits out all the other CB’s as and when it feels fit.

Yoro is excluded from this as I’m talking about those who have been here and active in professional games since Evans returned. Not a single one of them has covered themselves in glory, certainly not to be considered any level above Evans.
 
Class act, consummate professional too. To think of the money we have spent on defenders post-fergie, and he was the best of the lot all along.
 
Here we go, international break is upon us and the weird threads start.

He's seen by everyone as a class free transfer, no one thinks he should ideally be a starter because if his age but the other players are out of form, not fit or injured. Let's see if he can keep his place.
 
I thought everyone loved him?

There's generally an acceptance that we probably shouldn't be reliant on a 36-year-old Jonny Evans as a long term solution, and certainly not to the extent we have done, but how can anyone not respect the hell out of the guy? Exceptional yesterday.
 
Funny to think in hindsight we'd have been better off keeping Evans and Smalling. We'd have saved a few hundred million quid too
 
Is he the most likable player in the squad right now?

Total professional, no nonsense, loves the club, and plays well. Think it was against Porto, where he absolutely busted a gut running back during a Porto counter. Made me think we rarely see that kind of tracking back from most of the other players.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Is he the most likable player in the squad right now?

Total professional, no nonsense, loves the club, and plays well. Think it was against Porto, where he absolutely busted a gut running back during a Porto counter. Made me think we rarely see that kind of tracking back from most of the other players.
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It may have been this moment or one similar against Villa but I genuinely thought it was Dalot because of the speed he got back. Turned out to be Evans.
 
Rubbish.

We love him here. And to be honest wish he hadn't been sold in the first place.
 
I love him. Absolute club legend. If everyone else in the squad had his mentality and professionalism we'd be in a much better position.

I think the issue is that with the amount of money we've spent on new defenders, we shouldn't have needed to fall back on a 36 year old veteran that we got on a free transfer. It's an indictment of United's and Ten Hag's recruitment.
 
Played 220 premier league games in the years he was away from us. Letting him go was a massive mistake in retrospect, and many argued it was at the time too. Especially in the context of rojo, bailly, lindelof.

Not surprised we kept him another year, still has the ability, but just as important hes a total professional and senior head.
 
You lot must not have been paying attention or seeing what you want to see! As the moaning about him has been very prevalent across the United part of the board as well as in match day threads.
 
Fortitude said:
You lot must not have been paying attention or seeing what you want to see! As the moaning about him has been very prevalent across the United part of the board as well as in match day threads.
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Where? The majority of the comments I am seeing are that he's been nothing but brilliant since he has been back and generally lament that he was ever let go when you consider the shite that has been served up by his replacements.
 
I like him but keep him away from penalty kicks. I’m still scarred from his last one.
 
Stobzilla said:
Where? The majority of the comments I am seeing are that he's been nothing but brilliant since he has been back and generally lament that he was ever let go when you consider the shite that has been served up by his replacements.
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Ohh I don’t have the heart or energy for a wumminator-esque collation of posts. I also don’t really do the name and shame thing.

The positive sentiment in here is nice, but I don’t think it’s at all representative.
 
What I've seen more than disrespect are constant things such as;

"When a 36year old Jonny Evans is your best player..you have problems"

"Disgraceful that Jonny Evans is our best defender"

Which is I guess more a criticism and lament at the state of the rest of the squad, it still reads a little derogatory
 
VAN GAAL sold Welbeck and Johnny
10 year later , they would both walk into our 1st eleven
 
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Most fans wish he'd never been sold at all.
He was better than Maguire at Leicester also.

Van Gaal was just on a mission to remove as much of the Fergie regime as possible.
 
36 is definitely old in football terms but the significance of it gets exaggerated by fans and players who are younger. If you have looked after your body, and are a professional athlete, you probably won't notice that much drop off in your general performance, even though players in their teens and twenties will be slightly fitter.

Young, Milner, and Vardy are all older and Lallana and Coleman are of a similar vintage. They all look in excellent condition.

As someone who is pushing 42 and who has done powerlifting for about a decade, what I would say is that after you hit forty, your body does seem to slow down and the aches and pains you trained through in your thirties tend to linger or worsen. But to me, Johnny's age is not that significant an issue, aside from allowing slightly longer in rest and recovery times. He's not in his prime but there's no reason why he can't continue to perform like he did against Villa, providing he's managed correctly.
 
Evans and Smalling pairing should have never been sold.

All that hype about passing out from the back and all we did was get a lot of centrebacks who can't fecking defend.
 
IrishRedDevil said:
He shows us how crap our other CB's are.
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Considering when he was here previously he was not one of our best CBs it shows how standards have dropped,

but for his age and capacity to play 2 games a week I would be basing our defence around him being 1st choice,

he should never have been sold, not quite a legend but in the next bracket down
 
M Bison said:
Class act, consummate professional too. To think of the money we have spent on defenders post-fergie, and he was the best of the lot all along.
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He’s indicative of the type of player that used to roll off the production line at our academy - not just talented but disciplined and willing to put in the hard yards.
 
To say he only came to use the gym facilities to work on his fitness you guys won the lottery for the last two seasons with him.
Been a great stop-gap when you had injuries and when Maguire was out of favour.
Always gives 100% and an experienced player for the younger lads to look up to.
In fact he has probably made more senior players like Maguire look at themselves.

Yesterday he was the best man on the pitch….i mean out of all 22, plus subs.

Respect to him for keeping going at his age and putting those kind of performances in.
 
He and Carrick were my two favourite players towards the end of Fergie’s reign. Was vilified a lot from memory for his only crime of not being good as Rio and Vidic.

Such a pleasure to see him back and doing good.
 
Should have never let him leave the club to begin with. We've probably spent close to 500 million on center backs since he left 9 years ago. We missed on the prime of his career because LVG was a moron.
 
Did you see his interview after the Villa game? Commentator tried to steer him into saying something about how it used to be a privilege to play for United when they win but it must be hard these days...Johnny cut him off...'it's still a privilege'......that's why we love him. Wish more had that spirit.
 
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