Get it sorted, LouLou.
12
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 29
- Clean sheets
- 8
- Goals
- 4
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 3
- Red cards
- 1
Get it sorted, LouLou.
So the good run of games he's been on since City away don't count for anything for you?
They tried to sign him last summer as well during all the Vermaalen crap. Nothings changed since then, he is still by far the best CB at the club.
There's been as many bad or barely average performances since that City game as there has been good ones.
Bullshit.
I'd really like to see Jones and Smalling have a run of games together before I judge them. The fact that this has never happened till now is perhaps the heart of the problem.
You could go back through the thread for the last few months & find everyone moaning about him after games or if you prefer you can just ignore those & pretend he's been fantastic every game.
People tend to moan about his distribution as opposed to his defending. That's always been the case. The latter is very good.
Anyway, I'm glad it looks like we're going to keep him on. Great news.
We have threadmarks now, so let me indulge you.
Liverpool away: 'imperious', 'colossus', 'excellent'
Tottenham home: 'impressive again', 'great',
Arsenal home: 'disappointing', 'not top class', 'good first half, bad second'
Newcastle away: 'beast physically', 'real driving force... one of the first names on the team sheet', 'easily our best centre half'
Sunderland home: 'Another brilliant game', 'Absolute monster',
Preston home: 'Expect better', 'uncomfortable'
Burnley home: 'Weird performance, two goals, dodgy first half, solid in the second', 'defensive errors',
West Ham: Didn't play
Cambridge: 'Our best centre back', 'comfortable'
QPR: didn't play
Southampton home :'Excellent', 'Dominant as usual', 'great again'
Yeovil away: Very little discussion of him,
Stoke away: 'Decent', 'very solid', 'best of the three'
Tottenham away: 72nd minute sub
Southampton away: Injured
Stoke home: 'He's brilliant', 'class again', 'top drawer'
Hull home: 'Quality', 'Best defender this season, best defender last season', 'top performance'
Arsenal away: 'Best CB we have', 'quality', 'MOTM'
City away: Got sent off, had a shocker.
Chelsea home: 'MOTM', 'excellent game', 'good performance'
In bold are the the only times where the CAF has slated him post match, even Burnley and Arsenal at home that opinion wasn't universal. So, in 14 performances since City away he's received almost universal praise in 11 of those in a season where, until last week, the Caf was pretty much hysterical about absolutely everything.
He's undoubtedly had a good season, even if you don't think so yourself your assertion that yours is an opinion shared by the majority on the Caf is simply wrong.
I did just that, thanks to threadmarks. I've selected a few comments which appear to be the general consensus from each Premier League game since that calamity against City, to the present day:
Arsenal
Hull
Stoke
Southampton - injured fairly early on
Spurs
Stoke
Southampton
West Ham - Came on right at the death, but the threadmark consensus is that he should have started
Burnley - admittedly a poor game from him, but still got some praise, mostly for the goals. The whole defence was shambles tbf.
Sunderland
Newcastle
Spurs
Hull
Stoke
Southampton - injured fairly early on
Spurs
Stoke
Southampton
West Ham - Came on right at the death, but the threadmark consensus is that he should have started
Burnley - admittedly a poor game from him, but still got some praise, mostly for the goals. The whole defence was shambles tbf.
Sunderland
Newcastle
Spurs
The praise for him is largely consistent. Not much moaning about his performances, even in games where we didn't play well.
EDIT: beaten to it by Ninjafletch, who is equally as sad as me.
fecks sake, if I realised someone else was going to do it too I would have saved my self the time, it took ages to go back!
fecks sake, if I realised someone else was going to do it too I would have saved my self the time, it took ages to go back!
Thanks both. It needed saying. Its ridiculous how much lazy criticism he finds himself on the end of. He's a good defender and has had an excellent season.
In a space of two games he went from this to a terrific defender against Arsenal.
In fairness emotions run high during the derby, and he did f*ck the game up for us. He's been brilliant since then.
More the case he went back to being a terrific defender. So many people want to believe he turned some kind of corner after the City sending off, forgetting the fact he put in a top performance against Chelsea the week before. The sending off against City was dumb and completely out of character - his only sending off in his career so far. He's always been an excellent defender from his first season at the club. This season, he's taken his game up with his ball playing ability though.
The bit at the bottom hits the nail on the head. The quotes you've selected just go to show how much we've dropped our standards that average performances are heralded as "Quality", "absolute monster", "dominant as usual". The Stoke away game sums that up perfectly. He nearly cost us that game yet the quotes you've picked out are 'He's brilliant', 'class again', 'top drawer'.
I think he could be a top defender for us. I don't really rate him that highly at the minute, he's 25 going on 26 and I wouldn't have him on the list of 10 or 20 best defenders in Europe but he's definitely got the tools to be a very good player for us. Smalling will not be mentioned as one of the 5 best defenders in the world at any point in his career but not everyone has to be Ferdinand to play in defence for Manchester United, if he can be consistently as good as he's been recently then he deserves to be a starter for us and what we ought to look out for is a partner for him, although I think Rojo can be that. I still want us to bring another defender as Evans has been useless this season and we cannot cope with 3 defenders, out of whom two are very injury prone and one of them is very rash.
Been our best defender by far this season. Lad deserves a new contract & an extended run in the team. Not sure what your point is, but the lad has done very well in numerous games this season, that cannot be disputed.
I thought you might accuse me of cherry picking, it's the only defence you can fall back on, but unfortunately for you the threadmarks are there for everyone to see. Just admit that you don't speak for the Caf, even if you don't rate him, and move on.
How surprising that Arsenal are suddenly interested in him the moment he has two excellent games and seems to be forming a solid partnership with Jones..
But just weeks before that they were going on about how we need a whole new set of CB's especially since Jones and Smalling had failed to live up to their initial hype and need to be sold.
But just weeks before that they were going on about how we need a whole new set of CB's especially since Jones and Smalling had failed to live up to their initial hype and need to be sold.
How is that ironic?
edited it, started off the sentence wanting to say something, ended up saying something else
I don't speak for the cafe. I don't rate him. He's clueless & you're all bloody deluded. I'm right, you're all wrong.
I hope the Arsenal rumours are a load of rubbish. We need to get this guy signed on a new contract asap and he should be a mainstay in our defence with whoever LVG chooses to partner him with. Although it does worry me somewhat that when Smalling, Jones and Rojo have all been fit, LVG has always gone for Jones and Rojo as the pairing from what I remember, so maybe he doesn't rate Smalling that much. I hope his opinion has changed because Smalling is far better then both of them and should always start IMO.
Our need for a new CB is obvious and with the injury record we have amongst CB's I'd go with 5 players in the squad for 2 spots.
So with someone coming and Rojo 2 places are taken. Means 3 out of
Jones
Smalling
Evans
McNair
Blackett
I'd loan the 2 letter to a prem club and think Evans despite being the most experienced one has been the weakest since SAF left.
So with someone coming and Rojo 2 places are taken. Means 3 out of
Jones
Smalling
Evans
McNair
Blackett
I'd loan the 2 letter to a prem club and think Evans despite being the most experienced one has been the weakest since SAF left.
He's been our best defender this season.
We missed him against West Ham and Swansea. Both teams looked dangerous from set pieces and I don't like Jones or Rojo as a pairing. Stick Smalling with one of them and it is fine.
We missed him against West Ham and Swansea. Both teams looked dangerous from set pieces and I don't like Jones or Rojo as a pairing. Stick Smalling with one of them and it is fine.
His main weaknesses are that he's prone to injury (if you want to call that a 'weakness') and he has been poor with the ball. His ball-handling skills, though, seem to have improved noticeably this season and maybe, just maybe, his injury problems will be solved with the changes LVG has made to the fitness program (demoting Strudwick, etc.). In terms of pure defensive ability, I think he easily ranks with the top backs in the league.
Although this is what we've been hoping for years...
Although this is what we've been hoping for years...
Hope he stays. Think he is the best of all our center backs, not that this is a hard task. We need to keep our English base in the squad. He's also our tallest center back, we need to keep height back there.
I think it's obvious that Smalling should be first choice at RCB, backed up by Jones. Then we need someone to compete with Rojo on the other side, which would give us the 4 CB's we need considering the injury record of the current 3 we have. Evans should be sold while he still has some value.
The big question is what CB do we buy. Do we buy a young player with massive potential who can compete with Rojo or buy a veteran to start right away.
The big question is what CB do we buy. Do we buy a young player with massive potential who can compete with Rojo or buy a veteran to start right away.
Buy the best one available. Old or young doesn't matter.
He and Hummels would be ridiculous as a partnership.
The positional sense of the two would be a joy to watch
The positional sense of the two would be a joy to watch
His defending is almost exemplary, apart from the odd lapse in positioning, which Jones, Rojo, Valencia and Shaw also get wrong quite a bit. He's ready to be take more responsibility - become automatic first choice at right centre back and the leader of the back line. Looking forward to it.
He is an outstanding defender, and has had a handful of bad games in his 4-odd years here. We will struggle to improve upon him in the market this summer, and he should be a regular regardless of who we buy.
Crazy
Although there's still room for improvement, his decisions when in possession have improved be quite a margin this season. Let's hope it goes on.
I posted this in another thread and It basically sums up my hopes for Smalling...
in response to us signing an established finished product.
yeah I guess thats what going to happen but then Smalling and or Rojo/Jones spend the majority of time on the bench. This season we have the 3rd best defence in the league despite constant changes to it. We have conceded 2 more than Chelsea I believe who's back 4 hardly changes. Our defenders are still all relatively young players. I just think we could have rewarded their efforts this season (if we get top 4) with the chance to do even better together next year and naturally I'd expect them to be better. Thats not to say I wouldnt replace Evans....I would with John Stones or Varanne/Marquinhos if possible. I think we'd have a cracking group of young defenders and keeper with that approach for the next 7-8 years. But anyway I can see the appeal of a Hummels also I just dont see much point in all the chances we have given these young lads to lose faith when they are actually starting to justify it.
in response to us signing an established finished product.
yeah I guess thats what going to happen but then Smalling and or Rojo/Jones spend the majority of time on the bench. This season we have the 3rd best defence in the league despite constant changes to it. We have conceded 2 more than Chelsea I believe who's back 4 hardly changes. Our defenders are still all relatively young players. I just think we could have rewarded their efforts this season (if we get top 4) with the chance to do even better together next year and naturally I'd expect them to be better. Thats not to say I wouldnt replace Evans....I would with John Stones or Varanne/Marquinhos if possible. I think we'd have a cracking group of young defenders and keeper with that approach for the next 7-8 years. But anyway I can see the appeal of a Hummels also I just dont see much point in all the chances we have given these young lads to lose faith when they are actually starting to justify it.
Lay off the Margaritas, mate!