12
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 36
- Clean sheets
- 18
- Goals
- 2
- Assists
- 2
- Yellow cards
- 0
- Status
You are, of course, right, but I think, for now anyway, Pogba should be a guaranteed starter purely because we need him to adjust here ASAP and the fact that we know how good he can be. I agree that Herrera and Fellaini have both been good whenever they've been given the chance but the players I mentioned for the 3 are just my personal preference. I'd have no issue with Herrera and/or Fellaini starting instead, though.
No issues with that. Pogba hasn't been so poor that he should be benched.
Ah good. We're back to normal. The untouchable best-in-the-league "carried Smalling for half a season" Daley Blind was little lazy and played someone onside today, so Smalling's reputation has returned from being a no-footed clogger of Conference level back to the Vidic-Incarnate Demigod who would have twatted City single handed if given the chance.
Anticipating him perhaps making an error against Feyenoord which will punt him back to the tier of Titus Bramble if he had feet made of sledgehammers, and the kneejerk cycle will continue forevermore.
Haven't looked in the Blind thread today. Are we back to him being 2nd choice LB and last-resort DM rotation options only yet?
Anticipating him perhaps making an error against Feyenoord which will punt him back to the tier of Titus Bramble if he had feet made of sledgehammers, and the kneejerk cycle will continue forevermore.
Haven't looked in the Blind thread today. Are we back to him being 2nd choice LB and last-resort DM rotation options only yet?
Somewhat comfortably.
He'll play midweek and wouldn't surprise me to see him keep his place going forward.
Bring this beast back to the starting lineup please!
Surely will make his first start of the season on Thursday? Excited to see him back, hope he can regain his once magnificient form.
Really hope he plays tomorrow.
Fantastic defender when he is on his game. His under par passing probably won't be exposed as much under Mourinho as it did with LvG.
Fantastic defender when he is on his game. His under par passing probably won't be exposed as much under Mourinho as it did with LvG.
Hopefully he plays alongside Bailly. We have already seen how good he is alongside Blind so it would be good test to play alongside Bailly.
I think it could be a great partnership with those two, both beasts.
Obviously we would miss Blind's passing, but if we moved him or Carrick up as the DM i think it would make up for it.
Yeah again everything points to 4-3-3. Hopefully we switch to it sooner than later. Blind playing as DM means more or less he will have same time on the ball to pick up passes then we can play Herrera/Schneiderlin/Fellaini alongside Pogba.
Bring back Mike !
Feyenoord 1:0 Man Utd
With him with simply dominate our own box!
He's not good enough for where we want to be. One of the most overrated players we've ever had.
So frustrating watching him, Rojo and Darmian take forever to play the pass.
Based on what?
I thought he got pulled out of position too much tonight, but it's his first game so I'mn not sweating it.
There's a whole bunch of more overrated players in this side currently that aren't "good enough for where we want to be". Take your pick.
Who?
Why?
Nah, smalling never gets pulled out of positions. That's total nonsense.
He did, but then he was playing alongside Rojo... And no wonder, Smalling was mostly pulled out wide left.
I don't see anything wrong with Smalling today though. So does Bailly nothing wrong with both of them. Rojo was the culprit for the goal. Once we have Valencia and Shaw back again on Sunday the back four will be so much better and more organised defensively. The full back that we played today are basically the same full backs that we used majority last season.
He has some quality but he is at the end a really limited player.
Thankfully he ain't first choice anymore. Normal service to be resumed against Watford please Jose.
I really don't understand the hate he is getting for this game.
We can always use him to play as 2nd target striker along with Zlatan at the end of games when we hoof the ball up though. Bring smalling on!
First match in ages with fecking Rojo alongside him. He was shoved up front for the last 15 minutes too. Way too early to make any sweeping statements, but of course that is what will happen. Needs a run of matches.
Same. He was fine and needs to be back in the team regularly.
He did well imo.
What's with all the hate he's suddenly getting? He was fine yesterday.
Become a popular scapegoat it seems.
It wasn't his best or worst game, but he is limited as some have already stated. It's so annoying watching him control and pass the ball, he never plays it under pressure when facing towards our goal. He was one of many reasons why we couldn't get a grip. He didn't do any big mistakes as I could see, but is this enough?
Is that a major problem? He's a CB.
Ideally I want someone who can defend but also bring the ball out the back, but if it's a choice between a great defender with poor passing ability or a average defender who can play, then it's defender first for me.
I'm sure some people on here would rather have a Blind than a Vidic type defender. It's an added benefit if they can play but the reason why Vidic's on the ball limitations were never really exposed were due to Scholes and Carrick. Vidic wasn't terrible on the ball but rarely played a pass more than 10-15 yards. Scholes/Carrick would come deep, dictate the play and spray the balls that we are now expecting our CB's to play.
Our CB's pick up the ball now and there is no deep lying playmaker who can dictate the play from deep, hence why there is so much responsibility on Blind to play from the back because he's our main source of creativity from deep. If we had a prime Carrick/Scholes, we wouldn't even be mentioning Smalling's poor passing ability, just as we didn't 4/5 years ago when both were playing.
He's definitely good enough to be in the squad. He's very overrated by some on here, though.
This is all it is. He played well, and wasn't even at fault for the goal (Rojo was, as he was throughout the entire game, completely out of position) especially considering it was his first full competitive match all season.
He's not overrated. He was very, very good for a few months last season, and decent till the end of the season. Given how the rest of our defenders were well below par last season (Blind not included), the expected reaction regarding Smalling was always going to be positive and somewhat overwhelming.
Personally, I think Blind had a better season, last year, however, considering it was his first injury free year, Smalling was quite impressive.
Yesterday, both he and Bailly looked comfortable, however, if you have Rojo to your left, you're going to have your work cut out.
Yeah he's good. I said overrated be a few on here and he definitely is. There's some who think he is top class but he isn't. He's a good player and, as I said, definitely good enough for our squad. Can't really understand why some are complaining about him when there's far worse in the squad.
- Status