All the shit about Southgate, do people forget Mourinho himself mocked Smalling's passing after the Europe League final?
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I think it's a storm in a teacup really. We know he will be on the plane to Russia. Friendlies are always good opportunities to see younger talent, and in fairness it was good to see Joe Gomez look so comfortable.
Opinions become facts quickly inin football, and even facts become quickly exaggerated.
Can anyone say that generally speaking, watching Smalling every week is to witness a string of miscontrol and misplaced passes? I’ll be the first to admit he isn’t in the bracket of ‘ball playing defenders’, but in trying to make that point, I think others have gone well over board. I once saw a game at Craven Cottage between Fulham and QPR, and Christopher Samba literally cost QPR two goals in the first half alone as a direct result of him being a terrible footballer. I’ve never seen what I saw that day from Smalling.
Can anyone say that generally speaking, watching Smalling every week is to witness a string of miscontrol and misplaced passes? I’ll be the first to admit he isn’t in the bracket of ‘ball playing defenders’, but in trying to make that point, I think others have gone well over board. I once saw a game at Craven Cottage between Fulham and QPR, and Christopher Samba literally cost QPR two goals in the first half alone as a direct result of him being a terrible footballer. I’ve never seen what I saw that day from Smalling.
Thankfully I actually managed to find the clips from the Fulham vs QPR game I was referencing. As you can see, the first goal is from a penalty conceded by Samba, from a position where he actually has the ball! However, his touch is so bad, that it gets away from him, and leaves him attempting a tackle, which was of course late. The second goal, he receives a simple pass under little pressure, but he can’t get it under control in less than 4 seconds and is robbed, and they concede.
Again, you would think this is the sort of thing Smalling does if you read the caf.
When jones rojo and bailly are fit Smalling should be our 4th choice defender. When ever he plays i always have a feeling he will leak goals.
That’s nice. Does this feeling of your ever come to fruition?
Maximum times.
Interesting. You’re not referring to a computer game by any chance are you?
Do it look that way to you? You Just cant expect him to defend perfectly against good players with fast movements, and great abilities. The balls and low crosses to between his legs and he cant stop it.
It looks exactly like that. You said that you are in a constant state of fear whenever you see Smalling in our team that we will start leaking goals. I asked if, over the many years he has been here, we have begun ‘leaking goals’ with Smalling on the field, to which you replied ‘maximum times’. To my own recollection, this is simply not a true version of events, which suggests that it is possible that you may have meant that you leak goals on FIFA when playing with United, using Chris Smalling. In the real world, United don’t leak goals, and have had as good a defensive record as any for about 3 years. That’s before you even get to the subjective bit that Smalling has easily been our most reliable and consistent centre half in that 3 year period.
Still the best defender at the club. At times he really does look the real deal and just a dependable rock. There was a beautiful bit of skill he pulled off last night. It came off his back heal on his lead foot then hit the other foot and then he turned and faked like he was looking for it but it was right in front of him.
But seriously, he’s solid enough with the ball at his feet and just all round good at most aspects of defending.
But seriously, he’s solid enough with the ball at his feet and just all round good at most aspects of defending.
I am sorry but you are overrating smalling way too much. He gets exposed time and time again. He had one good season until now that is second year under LVG. He was exposed last year and this year also he's not that reliable.
Just look at last game highlights, we could have conceeded 3 goals and 2 of them were smallings mistakes as well as darmians.
Bailly is thebest defender at the club, not smalling.
Eventually maybe but not right now he’s not.
Rojo is. Carried the whole backline in some games last season, even covering for the LB.
Bailly is good, but his good moments do make people gloss over the mistakes he sometimes makes. Smalling and Jones are behind Rojo and Bailly though.
Right now even jones and bailly is better than smalling. The mistakes smalling is making is way too much.
Rojo is back for just one game this season. BAilly very very rarely makes mistakes like against stoke.
What mistakes? Bailly made a mistake against Chelsea, he actually makes mistakes everygame but they never get mentioned, Rojo made mistakes yesterday, Jones makes mistakes. The truth is people just use Smalling as a scape goat and like to beat him with a stick for all our defensive woes.
He’s the only one that organises the lot of them, he’s the one that always covers for the others being overly aggressive and getting caught out of position and out of the lot of them he is the best in a one on one and at reading the game.
The only down side is that he doesn’t do a david Luis and spread passes all over the field which really I have no problem with him playing an easy pass other than losing it pointlessly.
People keep referencing when Hazard binned him when he was one on one and Valencia had let Hazard walk in to the space and Smalling had to come across and cover. Hazard binned him as he does and would do to many others when one on one. Yet somehow this is always mentioned. It’s Hazard for gods sake people!
What mistakes? 1 st - the goal we conceeded. All 4 defenders made mistakes and smalling was also a part of it, he dint intercept the cross as he never had his eyes on the ball and the ball went between his legs.
2 nd mistake- again the same fizzed in cross where he should have intercepted it , went between his legs ,rojo saved a goal with a great last ditch tackle.
3rd mistake. completely missed a header on a cross being so close to the ball because of lack of effort and lack of proper leap nearly conceeded if the opposition player stuck his feet on the ball where darmian shielded him by the skin of his teeth.
He gets drawn out of position time to time. And the mistake against chelsea was solely down to him and not bailly one bit. The cross was always coming to morata as he was looking at the ball rather than bakayoko who had his back to the player making the cross and was going away from goal dragging smalling out of position. That game against newcastle smalling was caught of the position and overrun eaisily and got dragged out of position and also the cross came between his legs where he could have stopped it by diving on the ground.
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It’s very clear that everything you’re saying about Smalling is purely based on a dislike for him and very little else. You have an agenda. The same microscope you use to criticise him, why can’t you do the same for our other defenders?
Granted, Smalling is not all that great when he’s in possession of the ball, but he’s solid enough. And aesthetically too; maybe it’s his dopey-looking facial expressions and his tall & fairly lanky frame that gives way to this misplaced misconception that he’s very clumsy and nothing more than a pub defender, I don’t know.
But I’ll tell you one thing. Smalling excels at a CB’s main job, which is defending - no ifs no buts. Fantastic in the air (easily the best out of all our defenders), virtually unbeatable on the deck in 1v1’s, very solid positionally, and I’d argue that he’s a lot more measured with his defending than Bailly, Jones and Rojo. He’s a natural. If we’re defending a lead, there’s nobody else in the squad that I’d rather have defending the 18 yard area.
Two times.
Smalling is no where near the level of an elite defenders we have had in the past. I have no agenda against smalling one bit , but his only top season was in lvg era in second season where we kept most of the ball all the time and had to defend very less. Smalling was even exposed a lot of times in fergie era and now in mourinho era too.
Smalling was exposed in both arsenal and tottenhma away games last season too where welbeck got ahead of him and scored a header , he played vs chelsea away last season and this season we lost goals , He played numerous times vs city and lost goals , He has never been a reliable cb who can defend defend defend all the time. WHile defending a lead against top quality technical attack with technical players he can eaisily be beaten. Smalling can be relied to defend a lead against thr likes or west ham and stoke in the epl where you need aerial strenght.
I just pointed out his mistakes in the above post.
I think right now we don't have a clear best CB, but Smalling is the only one who has really reached his peak I'd say. He's the best defensively for me, he sticks his head on the ball, decent marker, very hard to get round (most PL strikers says he's the hardest to face) and keeps it simple, however I would be disappointed if in 1-2 years he was still considered our best CB.
Obviously Bailly is young, new to english football and is still rash, he has very high potential but he's not the finished article yet.
Jones has been here the same time as Smalling but he's yet to have back to back seasons without being injured 3-4 times a season, until he does that we cannot class him as our best CB as he needs to show it consistently and not just for 6-8 games. In other positions, you can be rotated and have time out with injury and come back in, CB is a much harder position to do that.
Rojo has been heavily criticised on here, even before he joined as he was weak at LB for Argentina and didn't massively stand out at Sporting. His time under LVG was very poor, but last season he was a brick wall at times but still prone to a few mistakes. This is his year to get some consistency into his game and be the main CB for us but obviously injury has robbed him of that until now. He needs to show he's fully over that injury and have a strong 2018.
Lindelof obviously isn't considering to be our best CB, but he was bought for a reason an there was a strong belief he was bought to be a starting CB next to Bailly.
Obviously Bailly is young, new to english football and is still rash, he has very high potential but he's not the finished article yet.
Jones has been here the same time as Smalling but he's yet to have back to back seasons without being injured 3-4 times a season, until he does that we cannot class him as our best CB as he needs to show it consistently and not just for 6-8 games. In other positions, you can be rotated and have time out with injury and come back in, CB is a much harder position to do that.
Rojo has been heavily criticised on here, even before he joined as he was weak at LB for Argentina and didn't massively stand out at Sporting. His time under LVG was very poor, but last season he was a brick wall at times but still prone to a few mistakes. This is his year to get some consistency into his game and be the main CB for us but obviously injury has robbed him of that until now. He needs to show he's fully over that injury and have a strong 2018.
Lindelof obviously isn't considering to be our best CB, but he was bought for a reason an there was a strong belief he was bought to be a starting CB next to Bailly.
This myth that Smalling was ‘made to look good by Van Gaal because we were so defensive’ also needs to be retired. A number of other defenders failed to look good at all, the likes of McNair and more notably, Jonny Evans defended like complete invalids at times.
Then there’s also the fact that our goalkeeper managed to be our clear best player, which contradicts any theory that our defenders didn’t have any opportunity to showcase what they can do.
And apart from all that, it’s just an incredibly stupid thing to say anyway. An individual defender is defending well because his team is defensive. So the mark of a good defender is how he performs when all his teammates storm foward and leave him to defend on his own or something?
Then there’s also the fact that our goalkeeper managed to be our clear best player, which contradicts any theory that our defenders didn’t have any opportunity to showcase what they can do.
And apart from all that, it’s just an incredibly stupid thing to say anyway. An individual defender is defending well because his team is defensive. So the mark of a good defender is how he performs when all his teammates storm foward and leave him to defend on his own or something?
CBs tend to look better in defensive set ups.
Chris smalling has been at manchester united a long time now.He has improved a bit after coming here due to Ferdinand and vidic but has reached his ceiling. This is his maximum ability - use him as you see fit.
Smalling is our faster defender so yes.
By far our most reliable defender. More than anyone else he covers for other players mistakes.
Lindelof hasn’t. Evans didn’t.
To the common fan, CBs tend to look better when they have lots of defending to do. Smalling was also a brilliant centre half under Fergie anyway.
What about goalkeepers? Do they look better the less they have to deal with?
Lindelof looked way better in the Sweden team. Evans looks much better at West Brom. Players sometimes lose form as well.
I like Smalling, I'm just saying.
Bailly and Jones leaked goals against many teams also. They couldn't even defend against Stoke striker "what's his name". And just recently, if you watched the game, Jones was subbed against Chelsea because he was the shitest among the three of Smalling and Bailly. He was a disaster waiting to happen.
And none of our defender is near the level we have had in the past. Bailly has potential, but that's it.
Apart from stoke bailly never gets caught. smalling gets caught many times while jones too was better and therefore started ahead of smalling at the start of the season.
He doesnt cover other players mistakes , he gets dragged out wide and leaves his man free on goal.That was the only period in the last few years where Jones has started ahead of Smalling when both have been fit. If you are going to point to that period, you have to look at the reverse as well. There have been many many times during the last few years where Smalling has been ahead of Jones when both were fit.
Last season Smalling started as first choice. He got injured a few times throughout the season, and each time he came back he had to wait a few games because the established pair were doing well, but the instant one of them got injured or started playing poorly Smalling came back in and stayed there until he got injured again. I can't remember him ever being dropped because of poor form. The same seems to have happened now. Jones and Bailly were obviously the favoured pairing for the first seven matches of the season (and even then Smalling started two of them), but since then he has obviously taken over as the only consistent in a backline that keeps revolving around him. He's started 12 of the last 13 matches (and came on as a sub in the other one). Hell, it's been obvious all season (and even in pre-season) that he is the only one that Mourinho trusts to play next to Lindelof.
If you try to compare him to Rio or Vidic, of course he's not at that level. But none of our other options are either. All four are at a similar level, with Rojo being the only natural on the left side so if he can come back at top form he has the advantage there. So Smalling, Bailly and Jones will be mostly competing for that spot next to him. I can easilly see it going to either Smalling or Bailly, but I'd be quite surprised if it ends up being Jones. He's both the worst (IMO) and by far the most injury prone.
Bar Jones and Bailly, the last few years he's had to babysit some very ordinary players. Especially Evans and Blind in LVG's system which was an absolute train wreck.
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Smallings best period was one season under lvg. I never said smalling is bad, but he's venerable and looses concentration in big games in crunch moments in crunch games. Ones jones is fit along with rojo and bailly smalling will be the one to make way in big games also one of the reason for that will be his no ability to pick out passes from the back which does not help our build up play. Smalling do well in a posession based system as man to man marking but in a zonal system he gets caught out.
Since smalling is playing last 3 games we have conceeded 1 each in 3 games where smalling is involved too.
Yes it was. Of course, that period was also SIGNIFICANTLY better than any other period that any of our other defenders have ever had in their career. Even though he hasn't hit those heights again, his 'usual' level is still at least at a similar level than our others. Plus he's shown the ability to be significantly better.
Completely disagree with that. If Jose continues to regularly play with a five man defence in big games, I would say Smalling is the only one who is guaranteed (barring injury) to be there. Rojo, Bailly and Jones are all somewhat similar in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. Smalling's aerial ability is simply so far ahead of the others that just by itself that almost guarantees he would be there if we play with three central defenders.
Like I said, if we play with a four man defence I wouldn't be particularly surprised if Bailly ends up moving ahead of Smalling again (at this moment I'd lean towards Smalling). But if we're playing five men it's almost guaranteed Smalling is there.
Hmmm, we seem to agree on this one. Spot on!
That feminine, huh? I mean, he has a high pitched voice, but still.
What did Smalling do wrong on Wednesday for there to be as much activity in this thread?
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