Solid as usual. Our best CB without a doubt.
12
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 34
- Clean sheets
- 8
- Goals
- 1
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 2
- Status
I literally can't understand why this was said about him when there were players like blind, rojo and jones. Smalling going before Rojones makes no sense at all.
He shouldn't have even been playing that game. He had a broken toe that kept him out for a month or so after it, so Jose shouldn't have chosen him. Smalling tried to do what Jose had talked about earlier that season and made himself available through an injury, and it proceeded to cost us big-time in that match.
Same old story, very good defensively, dominate in the air, play with murderous intent but at the same time knows how to stay on his feet in the right moment, the only our defender who can score goal from set pieces, hopefully people can start appreciate what he can offer in our team.
I think him, DDG & Shaw can hold important key in our defense this season, too bad I'm not convinced with his other partner (whoever plays next to him).
My MOTM. Solid in defense & his goal was crucial and what a finish as well with his weaker foot. Fellaini made couple of small mistakes in the game so I placed Smalling ahead of Fellaini in motm.
I think him, DDG & Shaw can hold important key in our defense this season, too bad I'm not convinced with his other partner (whoever plays next to him).
My MOTM. Solid in defense & his goal was crucial and what a finish as well with his weaker foot. Fellaini made couple of small mistakes in the game so I placed Smalling ahead of Fellaini in motm.
Good performance yesterday, and what a peach of a goal. I don't see him as part of a genuinely top class CB pairing but he delivers the goods more often than not, so deserves respect.
He's been our best centre half for about 4 years now. Yet people wanted him sold ahead of the others. Bizarre. He's one of the few players who's actually developed a good confidence in himself over the last few years and you can see it in his performances.
Still very handsy at set pieces, really needs to sort that out before VAR comes to town.
Solid again and following the usual pattern. He's not got the ability of others and thus doesn't start the season, but before long the others are either injured or have lost the plot, and he's back to being a fixture in the team.
The question has always been should we sell Smalling or should we sell Jones, the answer is pretty clear by now.
The question has always been should we sell Smalling or should we sell Jones, the answer is pretty clear by now.
I will confess that, at pretty much every opportunity, I've talked Smalling down consistently. I still don't think he is a top class defender. However, its tough to make the case that the other centre backs we have are better than him.
At the moment though Smalling is our best centre back. I wanted to believe Bailly would be better and, maybe, with time and nurturing Bailly will be better. At the moment that's not the case.
Considering City can call on Kompany, Otamendi, Laporte and Stones that's troubling. Still, you can only do what you're capable of and it'd be harsh to slam Smalling to playing to his limit, even if that limit is levels below a Bruce, Stam or Vidic.
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"Should we sell Smalling?" has been a ridiculous question every time it has been asked. More are starting to realise it now.
Solid defensively usually, prob our 2nd most fit CBs (his return from injury seems to be a lot quicker than the rest) after Lindelof, aerially reliable, set-piece threat, chip in goals, more consistent than the rest, not bad at partnering up with different CB partners (with Jones it's a mess though).
Hard to say he's not our best CB atm, even if Bailly have the way higher ceiling.
Hard to say he's not our best CB atm, even if Bailly have the way higher ceiling.
Cracking goal for a defender, the hair do is a bit dodgy though.
He could do a Hitler fringe haircut and I wouldn't care less so long as he's playing well.
He had a broken toe didn't he?
Yep.
We continue to slate Smalling but he continues to be our best CB week in and week out when played. For me he has to start and Lindelof seems to be the best partner for him. Smalling and Lindelof as our starting CB combo with Bailly and Jones as the next partnership. I dont want to see Smalling and Jones start together every again, our worst partnership by far.
Not only that he is our best CB, he is easily our best defender too. Much better at doing his job for few years now than our fullbacks too.
Valencia has been absolutely amazing at RB for years now. His only glaring weakness being his inability to cross but defensively, he is so sound. I think that Mou has our best D set when Shaw returns from injury. Week 1 when Young played RB instead of Valencia we did not look as good without Valencia.
Valencia also ruins our offside trap quite often. That is his biggest defensive weakness.
I can agree with that statement... Part of him not being a natural defender at times. I still think we are blessed to have him as our RB though. I would only take Kyle Walker over him when looking at other rosters for RB in the EPL. Trippier would be a good shout to. Hopefully he has another two years in him and in that time can help Dalot become a RB legend at United. I am still unsure about TFM's best position
He's been out of position often for a long time. Thats part of the reason Smalling has performed so well, having to come over to the right and see off attacks when Valencia is not there.
Valencia is decent defensively but nowhere near good attacking wise, for years now.
Young Boys 0:3 Man Utd
Absolute Rock again. Last few games he’s been really good.
Thought he looked a little leggy tonight in moments during the game but still found enough to make the big defensive plays when he had to. Poor pass that led to the Fred yellow, but this partnership with Lindelof is starting to build some momentum.
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Nothing to see here. Pretty solid as usual.
Still has that dreadful hair though.
Still has that dreadful hair though.
Solid as usual.
The good thing is that it was just one pass, and he was much quicker and assertive with his passing tonight.
One of the top CBs in the league as always
I feel like his passing has been better than usual the last 2 matches
Smalling has a horrible habit of turning like a turret when passing short; which makes him very easy to trap using a high press.
Smalling's long passing is competent, and when given space his passing is fine.
His been pretty solid for a long time now, but i would like to see him hit some beastmode form pretty soon. It has been a while. Think he looks a bit heavy in his turning since the start of the season, he used to be quite quick despite his size. It's not bad or anything, but I think about the times he has had with Hazard and don't feel so confident about him vs those tricksters right now.
What is the result of this trap?
Where did this high press thing come from?
Lmao. What a description, but more or less true.
Is that from that video of him using a second to pass to Fellaini like 2 yards while being surrounded by teammates? He don't do that all games you know, and when pressed every proper CB without an option of a pass will "panic", if that constitutes pass to the safe option out wide or back to the GK. I absolutely agree that Smalling has been more adventurous with his passing these last few games.
No it's not from a video. Smalling actually turns like a turret when passing, that's just the way he was taught to pass.
I don't think it's ability related, Smalling can make difficult passes fine, he just has a strange technique when doing so.
I'm 100% convinced that if Varane had come to United and played exactly the same as Smalling this season and defended exactly as well as he has done, but didnt do anything more on the ball than Chris Smalling has done this season...
Posters on this forum would be calling him the best CB in the world.
I dont think hes the best CB in the world, or even the league. But the point is that some, usually foreign players have a certain profile and hype about them which pushes people to suggest they put in a 9/10 performance when realistically it was a 7/10 performance because "They're class".
Smalling is obviously the furthest thing from one of these players who have their performances overstated. For every tiny bit of praise he gets, he has to work as hard as any other player in world football to get it.
Posters on this forum would be calling him the best CB in the world.
I dont think hes the best CB in the world, or even the league. But the point is that some, usually foreign players have a certain profile and hype about them which pushes people to suggest they put in a 9/10 performance when realistically it was a 7/10 performance because "They're class".
Smalling is obviously the furthest thing from one of these players who have their performances overstated. For every tiny bit of praise he gets, he has to work as hard as any other player in world football to get it.
I think you're just comparing a 6'4 giant type CB with a smaller one. They almost all take longer to turn and make quick sharp movements. Thats the benefit of being smaller
Another good game from Killmonger.
Smalling has been our best CB since the LVG days and gets slaughtered whenever we concede goals. He'll almost always get blamed regardless of what he's done.
I'd have him on par with Van Dyke at the moment, consistent physical centre back that chips in with goals.
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