Great game against Kane as usual.
12
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 45
- Clean sheets
- 20
- Goals
- 4
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 4
- Status
Bit messy in the first half. Much better in the second.
Immense today hope someone reminded him to let Kane out of his pocket after the match.
A big reason that goals conceded hasn't been our problem in about four years.
Standard good performance from him. There still seems to be people baffled in the match thread when he starts though.
Smalling is basically Kane’s Kryptonite. Kane must hate coming up against him as that’s a few time Smalling has completely shut him down now.
Standard Smalling performance. Immense for 89 mins and costs us in the remaining 1 minute.
Its great how he always shuts Kane down though.
Its great how he always shuts Kane down though.
Cost us?
The thing that has impressed me this season with Smalling is his mental toughness. He has made mistakes in games but he has never allowed it to control him, keeps coming back, fighting, never feeling sorry for himself. Always been an easy target for the critics but he has had a fine career given his start.
He didn't exactly shower himself with glory in the play leading up to Alli's goal. Left Valencia a bit high and dry.
We conceded a goal so it's obviously Smalling's fault as usual. Imagine if we'd conceded two like the great Spurs centre backs.
Some people just can't give praise where its due and leave it at that. Valencia should've been tighter to Alli. How is that even 'costing' us in the remaining one minute anyway?
Did you see his response
I’ve honestly never laughed at a post as much as I just did there. You can’t make this stuff up.He makes defending look easy. It's like people only notice defenders these days if they either make a mistake, a last ditch tackle or make a good pass.
Good again as usual. No point in trying to make people see it when they don't want to.
Never. He can be man of the match every game and our top scorer and people would still say "he did well" through their teeth, whilst waiting for the next time we conceed so they can come up with some bizarre logic as to why it must be Smalling's fault. Because thats what they want. Reality doesnt matter to them, its dogma.
Thankfully Chris Smalling is getting on with it and having his 2nd best season in a United shirt, ignoring those people.
He should have, but Smalling glanced over and saw him struggling to keep up with Alli. He then left them and ran over towards Jones instead of covering Valencia. If he had done he was well ahead of Alli and would have intercepted the cross.
It is clear as daylight that Smalling is the best defender we have, and along with De Gea, the reason that we have one of the best defences in the EPL. The agenda critics should by now be resigned to the fact that Mourinho will build his defence around Smalling next year too.
That’s because he is covering the run of Kane who is running centrally.
Amazing.
Ashley Young is completely out of position on our left side, with Pogba not doing a great job covering and tracking back. Player puts in a great cross where Alli has got goalside of our other fullback, Valencia. Even De Gea had more chance of affecting the ball or putting Alli off with his presence than our CBs.
But Smalling is in the team so I guess it was his fault huh?
So what, if he hadnt have glanced over towards Valencia then it wasnt his fault that our fullbacks are out of position?
Astonishing. I guess some haters never take a day off
It's his job as a CB to know where his fullback is and cover him if he's beaten.
Kane was literally invisible today. Well done Smalling.
Guy. He looked and Valencia was not too far behind, Valencia is quicker than Alli too. Smalling even pointed to Valencia to make sure he picked up Alli, then Antonio for some odd reason stopped his run, then realised he shouldn't have and started running. That's the reason he was so late. As everybody said Smalling picked up Kane, because he should be doing that in this situation.
Still ignoring the fact that he was covering the run of Kane tho or is he just supposed to let him run free in to the centre whilst he retreats to help Valencia? Wonder what you’d be saying if he did that.
If he chooses the Ali option and the ball goes to Kane for a side footed finish he gets criticized for making that decision. It is like the Chelsea goal that caused so much discussion, he has to make a choice/prioritize danger, can't effect both options.
I do not blame Pogba for that goal at all. Pogba and Eriksen were both around middle of the pitch and when Sanchez played that long ball, Eriksen already made the run leaving behind POgba. By then, Pogba knows Eriksen is away and then follows him but it feels as though Pogba dint track back. This sort of situations happens every match, esp. in long ball situation.
To me, Young and Valencia were at fault for conceding that goal.
Little bit shaky performance in the first 25 mins from our whole defence, but after they were good.
He's been in a solid run of form and worked well with Jones today.
He was very good and usual performance vs Kane.
Defensive rock, and somehow we have sorted out the problem of him getting pressed into hoofing.
I've never had a problem with Smalling. Always shows up for the big games. Our only goalscoring central defender; if he played for someone else he'd be worth an incredible amount and rated extremely highly.
Great all through the game, let down badly by his teammates in defence and midfield for the first 30 but was still spot on with his own positioning and when everyone else settled he just dominated. I know Southgate doesn't like him but in this form he's mad if he doesn't start the guy at the World Cup. Easily the best defender England have even if he's not a great footballer. I'd play him and Maguire and see how they go. Nobody is getting past them in the air at any rate. In a back 3 you can add Gomez who's also a good player if that's how Southgate sees it working. I'd sack Cahill off and have Dier and Stones as the reserves to those 3. Could take Tarkowski too maybe, he looks fairly decent. Depends how many midfielders you want to take as well I suppose.
I’ve never understood the stick he gets. The very nature of playing centre-back means that there’s always a blip round the corner. Generally, he’s given us sterling service and rarely lets us down. Obviously he’s no Rio, but who is? I’m well satisfied with him. Nice bloke to boot as well.
No his job is to defend his area of the pitch, unless an immediate threat is close to him and more important than defending the box.
Chris Smalling is on the right side of CB. Phil Jones is the CB closest to Eriksen. He's the one who could have put more pressure on the player crossing the ball in order to stop him delivering a peach like he did.
The cross comes in and Smalling is covering Spurs' biggest goal threat as he had been all along, Harry Kane.
Valencia and Alli start off in a very similar position when Eriksen gets the ball on the right. Valencia is just jogging back while Alli is sprinting because he smells a goal. Its 100% his responsibility to get back and he has plenty of time to do so. But he's lazy with it and we're only 10 mins into the game... Smalling isnt used to Valencia being lazy. Thats not something you can usually accuse him of. This time he messed up.
But if Smalling thought he was going to mess up and ran away from Harry Kane leaving him unmarked in the box with as an easier target for Eriken's pass, and tracked Alli - then we'd all be asking
What the feck were you doing Smalling?!
But he didnt, because he knows his job unlike yourself. And he did his job. Those around him? Not so much
He's got 4 goals and 18 (?) clean sheets this year... is anyone in the league even coming close to that?
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