I'm not bashing him ffs, i'm saying what i've seen over the last few years. LVG got 2 CD when he came, Mourinho the same, by all accounts Ole is also desperate for at least one, the England manager does not rate Smalling either; on top of that during the last 2 years we were all desperate for at least one new defender. But now, during summer, all of a sudden Smalling is a good defender? I don't know of any neutral fans that rates him (or Jones) and i had no idea that part of the CAF does. It seems very strange to me. It is what it is though.
It's the Smalling thread so i'm discussing him, but i have similar feelings about most our defenders. Jones and Rojo are also not good enough IMO and Bailly although is a good player i think, he needs to stay fit to gain confidence otherwise he is just a big of a problem.
His defending is ok, not great as some want to think, but the fact of the matter is you can't play attacking football with defenders that are poor on the ball. It's no coincidence that our best defensive record came in a season in which we parked the buss and our GK was man of the season still (and we had major problems scoring and creating by playing so deep). As soon as we looked to attack more, the house of cards that is Smallings "good defending" fell apart and we became exceptionally weak to the opposition pressing.
I think the bigger picture here is that in modern football it's not enough to be just good at defending, you also need to be good at making play and even fast 1-2s and the odd dribbling to bypass pressing, just as it's important for attackers to defend by pressing and cutting passing lanes. Players that can't do this put the team at a big disadvantage. The time of when defenders just need to defend and attackers to attack has passed.