James Ducker: United prepared to listen to offers for Smalling

They are both going to leave United eventually so we are just arguing over who goes first!

It looks like Smalling will be the first out the door, followed by Jones in the next few transfer windows.
 
RuudTom83 said:
They are both going to leave United eventually so we are just arguing over who goes first!

It looks like Smalling will be the first out the door, followed by Jones in the next few transfer windows.
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That's probably correct. Surprising that we haven't been linked with a move for any big, aerially dominant, Vidic-style centrebacks, given that Mourinho complained about the lack of aerial prowess in our defensive line earlier in the season. Selling Smalling, our best header of the ball, obviously won't help that (although I do think Jones is a better defender overall).
 
Getting rid of Smalling and instead keeping Jones makes no sense to me, simply because of Jones' inevitable injuries.

Comparisons between the players' abilities (or lack thereof) would've only been relevant if Jones could stay fit, which he can't, and won't. Unfortunate, but that's the way it has been and will be.
 
Smallings confidence took a big dent in the tail end of the season, and his form really suffered. Hadn't an ounce of composure. Jones settled quicker when he was back in the team. Smalling probably needs an experienced head next to him. Think Evans, he was solid with an experienced person next to him, but to become the main man at the back you need a lot more and a cool head.

Think Jose has lost confidence in Smalling, and cant assure him of a starting place. Suits both parties to move on. Shame as I liked Smalling, but again I draw contrast to Evans - think he will do well somewhere else, if it is Arsenal - Kos will be a good partner for him.

Only worry is Jones and his fitness issues though.
 
Everyone arguing over which one to keep is bonkers. They both need to go. The fact that Smalling is linked with likes of West Ham, West Brom and Everton says it all.
 
If McGuire fetches 17M, we should hold out for atleast 25M for Smalling and wait till Aug. 31 for some desperate mid table club to overplay their hand.
 
Dans said:
So why do you think it is that he might be being sold?
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Has not a single thing to do with his athleticism.
If he's going to be sold, it'll have more to do with his ability with the ball at his feet and reading of the game. He's a fantastic athlete and a great 1 on 1 defender when you give him a role where his sole job is to mark other teams target man out of the game. He really needs a leader alongside him to get the best out of him. I don't see United as having had a great defensive organiser any time soon. Paddy, Rio & Vida have been gone a long time now and we've not replaced that experience nor leadership.
 
devilish said:
Is Mou a miracle worker? Can he keep him fit? I doubt it
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Works in our advantage too sometimes because another fit cb will want to play, and be unhappy. Jones knows he won't get to any bigger club or money and ambitions with another club. We can use him sparsely.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Short memories?! He's been with United for seven years and only once missed fewer than 13 PL games with injuries. He's averaged just over 20 league games per season. Which means that, on average, he's missed almost every second match. For a player who plays in central defence that's diabolical.

Performance wise his best season, by a margin, was 2015/16. But even within that season he was inconsistent with a run of wretched performances at the business end of the season.

On his day he can play brilliantly but he's incredibly inconsistent, in every way. Which just won't do in a back four that hopes to win the title. Consistency is everything at the back.
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I don't know where you got your information from but transefmarket says he has missed about 50 games total in 7 years, since joining us. That translates roughly to missing about 7 games per season and that figure is probably lower than games missed per season for only the premier league.
 
RuudTom83 said:
They are both going to leave United eventually so we are just arguing over who goes first!

It looks like Smalling will be the first out the door, followed by Jones in the next few transfer windows.
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jones does have the ability(?) to play anywhere across the back four and at one stage last season threatened to have three or four good games on the tro so I'd sell Smalling ahead of him
 
Seems that we are asking peanuts in this day and age which indicates we will shift him for pretty much any price.Whilst he had an excellent EL final i think his confidence is shot under Jose and the time is right for him to move on.No need for a panic purchase,unless its Bonucci.
 
prtk0811 said:
Works in our advantage too sometimes because another fit cb will want to play, and be unhappy. Jones knows he won't get to any bigger club or money and ambitions with another club. We can use him sparsely.
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So we need to thank our gods that we've got an injury prone player who barely ever turn out to work?
 
Gbenger said:
You are probably including games played in which he was on the bench and stating them as games that he missed through injury. Not sure if you are serious either.
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Oh. You are serious. How long have you been following United? He's been constantly getting injured since we signed him. 2015/16 the exception that proves the rule.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Oh. You are serious. How long have you been following United? He's been constantly getting injured since we signed him. 2015/16 the exception that proves the rule.
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I don't think there's many players that don't pick up injuries every season, it's part and parcel of the game. As for you say earlier that he's only played so many games in seven years at the club, don't forget to mention we also had Rio and Vidic still at the club.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
If McGuire fetches 17M, we should hold out for atleast 25M for Smalling
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Definitely.

Comparing one fee to another doesn't justify the logic behind individual transfers, but in this case, he is English and in/around the peak of his career. Whilst he has flaws he is a very solid player who would improve most teams. £25m really should be the minimum for him.
 
OnlyTwoDaSilvas said:
Definitely.

Comparing one fee to another doesn't justify the logic behind individual transfers, but in this case, he is English and in/around the peak of his career. Whilst he has flaws he is a very solid player who would improve most teams. £25m really should be the minimum for him.
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Should not sell him at all.
 
Why are we arguing over which crap player to keep? Both of them failed to make the grade over the course of their careers at the club. I'd be happy to see them replaced. Our centrebacks next season should be Lindolf, Bailly, Rojo, Taunzebe, (one of Smalling or Jones). Next summer the remaining one of Smalling and Jones should be shipped off and replaced by either;

- An academy lad who's made the grade
- A premier league quality defender as a backup to Lindolf/Bailly (if they've made the grade at the heart of our defence)
- A defender to improve on our best defender (forcing the rest down the pecking order)

We need to look at it as continual improvement until we have the level of quality required to win the league and be a contender for winning the champions league. This is the standard across all positions.
 
wiz4231 said:
I don't think there's many players that don't pick up injuries every season, it's part and parcel of the game. As for you say earlier that he's only played so many games in seven years at the club, don't forget to mention we also had Rio and Vidic still at the club.
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They haven't been at the club over the last three seasons. In two out of those last three season - when we've been relying on Smalling - he's missed 13 and 20 league games respectively. That's way above average for a PL centre-back with aspirations of winning the league.

He's featured in an average of league 26 games over the last three seasons, an average which is bumped up by 2015/16 when he played 35 games, 10 games more than he's ever managed in any other season in his entire career to date.

Koscielny, Cahill, Ottamendi, Vertonghen and Aldwerweireld have all managed to average 30+ games over the same period of time (can't think of any other rival CBs who were consistently first choice, feel free to suggest some?) and a few of them have had to cope with fairly nasty and/or recurrent injuries. Centre backs cover a lot less ground than players in other positions so should be more or less ever-present. That's how a team develops a proper defensive unit. It's no coincidence that Rio and Vidic were both averaging 30+ games/season when they were at the same age as Smalling is now and we had the best defence in the league.

Before anyone says anything, it goes without saying that Jones' record is diabolical too but it's possible he will sort himself out when he hits his prime in his late 20s, in the same way that, say, Gerrard did.
 
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prtk0811 said:
Should not sell him at all.
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I agree, I'd rather we sold Jones over Smalling. I'm still a fan of Smalling and believe he has plenty to offer despite his flaws. All the sounds coming out seem to be about Smalling being the one to go though, it's all about getting an appropriate fee for him, but I'd rather he got another season under Mourinho at least.
 
Smalling has his flaws, but he is easily United's best CB and defender ever since Rio/Vidic went their way. Maybe that isn't saying much considering he didn't have some competition, altough that competition is still mostly here, but I'd say our defence has been probably the least of our problems after Fergie left. No way he deserves to be sold before some other players, it's completely ridiculous IMO. Just look at his main partner who is our most pointless squad player for years.
 
Amar__ said:
Smalling has his flaws, but he is easily United's best CB and defender ever since Rio/Vidic went their way. Maybe that isn't saying much considering he didn't have some competition, altough that competition is still mostly here, but I'd say our defence has been probably the least of our problems after Fergie left. No way he deserves to be sold before some other players, it's completely ridiculous IMO. Just look at his main partner who is our most pointless squad player for years.
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It's amazing how someone's opinion can be so wrong. If he was "easily our best defender" then he wouldn't be the first to get sold, would he?
 
OnlyTwoDaSilvas said:
I agree, I'd rather we sold Jones over Smalling. I'm still a fan of Smalling and believe he has plenty to offer despite his flaws. All the sounds coming out seem to be about Smalling being the one to go though, it's all about getting an appropriate fee for him, but I'd rather he got another season under Mourinho at least.
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I agree.
 
AndyJ1985 said:
It's amazing how someone's opinion can be so wrong. If he was "easily our best defender" then he wouldn't be the first to get sold, would he?
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It's also amazing that someone who is "easily our best defender" played worse than every other central defender in our squad (all four of them, five if we include Tuanzebe, although he didn't actually get a game in the centre) for almost the whole of last season.
 
Looking at the 'Smalling is injury prone myth / debate':

Smalling has missed 50 Games through injury (eight separate injuries) in his United career (seven seasons), resulting in an average of just over seven games per season. Is this injury prone or not? Could be, but it depends who you're comparing it to.

Note that this won't be the 'be all and end all' of the discussion, just one bit of data to assess. His metatarsal fracture cost him 105 days and 14 games missed, while his foot injury this season (broken toe) resulted in 52 days injured but missed 12 games (timing of the injury and fixture congestion can manipulate stats).

Also, while we're here, this is Phil Jones':

Seasons: 6
Games Missed Through Injury: 101
Average Games Missed Per Season: 16.83
Separate Injuries: 15

Not to mention a cruciate injury at Blackburn that cost him 12 games.

Smalling is less than half as injury prone as Jones. Phil Jones is a continuous crock. Why anyone is wanting to keep taking the risk is beyond me. Surely it's ridiculous to rather keep Jones? I just cannot see why anyone would want to. Get rid of him now while he's coming to the last year (or two?) of his contract.
 
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I'm sure all the experts on here slating Smalling are the same ones who were on here last summer telling us Rojo was the worst player ever to wear a United shirt. Strange how a few decent performances seem to have made Rojo a favourite despite his injuries.
 
Zlatattack said:
Why are we arguing over which crap player to keep? Both of them failed to make the grade over the course of their careers at the club. I'd be happy to see them replaced. Our centrebacks next season should be Lindolf, Bailly, Rojo, Taunzebe, (one of Smalling or Jones). Next summer the remaining one of Smalling and Jones should be shipped off and replaced by either;

- An academy lad who's made the grade
- A premier league quality defender as a backup to Lindolf/Bailly (if they've made the grade at the heart of our defence)
- A defender to improve on our best defender (forcing the rest down the pecking order)

We need to look at it as continual improvement until we have the level of quality required to win the league and be a contender for winning the champions league. This is the standard across all positions.
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"Lindolf" ? :D
His name is Lindelof (Lindelöf in Swedish)
 
Smalling is decent enough backup.

And the crock argument doesn't really work until we line up a (squad) replacement. If people are happy to ship out both Smalling and Jones - and rely on youngsters for backup - well, that's on them but too risky for me.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Smalling is decent enough backup.

And the crock argument doesn't really work until we line up a (squad) replacement. If people are happy to ship out both Smalling and Jones - and rely on youngsters for backup - well, that's on them but too risky for me.
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We're not shipping out both of them for sure, at least not this summer, so we'll have one of them AND Blind as backup/rotations before we even go into Tuanzebe who's a terrific prospect. Rojo will come back mid-season as well so number is by far not a problem.
 
I don't think we need to keep both Jones AND Smalling, and from the two I'd rather keep Jones who is far more adept at covering other positions, obviously CB in either a two or three man set up (trendy ?) RB, and even DM.
He appears to be far more committed to the team, certainly gives 100% which is probably why he picks up so many injuries, my only concern would be that come the ACN, we could have Bailly away, Rojo still not back and Jones injured, leaving just Lindelöf and Blind !
 
khoazany said:
We're not shipping out both of them for sure, at least not this summer, so we'll have one of them AND Blind as backup/rotations before we even go into Tuanzebe who's a terrific prospect. Rojo will come back mid-season as well so number is by far not a problem.
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Seems to me we've been saying that for years now, only to be shocked at the extent of the annual injury crisis.
 
Amar__ said:
Smalling has his flaws, but he is easily United's best CB and defender ever since Rio/Vidic went their way. Maybe that isn't saying much considering he didn't have some competition, altough that competition is still mostly here, but I'd say our defence has been probably the least of our problems after Fergie left. No way he deserves to be sold before some other players, it's completely ridiculous IMO. Just look at his main partner who is our most pointless squad player for years.
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Who is that? Blind? Or Jones?
 
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