James Ducker: United prepared to listen to offers for Smalling

Chesterlestreet said:
Smalling is decent enough backup.
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Granted thats your opinion but i have to disagree.

Smalling is not decent, and i say that because he spends most of a season trying to play himself into form. The only season (excluding his early years) I thought he looked a quality CB was in LvGs last season. But he was helped massively by the formation we played, in fact i actually believe the reason we played that way was because LvG knew playing a open game without two holding MFs would expose Smalling too much - and to be honest the few games we did open it up (namely Wolfsburg) we got ripped apart. Even this season as soon as hes on the pitch he always has a mistake in him or doesnt do something as simple as tracking his man. Off the top of my head I can think of 2 times this season where he was caught flat footed because he didnt know his surroundings.

Personally i want to upgrade our reserve CBs as both Smalling/Jones just arent good enough. I'd be tempted to keep Jones purely because hes younger
 
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limerickcitykid said:
Who is that? Blind? Or Jones?
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Jones, of course. Blind is excellent squad player.

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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First, we have no idea if this is true, and second, Mourinho is here just one year(and I am talking about 4 years period) and Smalling was his first choice CB for entire year.

Pogue Mahone said:
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.
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Yeah, that must be the reason why Mourinho kept picking him in our starting XI whenever he was fit, including the most important game of the season. :boring:
 
Pogue Mahone said:
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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In what season exactly did Smalling miss over 20 league games specifically due to injury?

Where are you pulling such starts from?

This is Smalling's injury record from transfer market

https://www.transfermarkt.com/chris-smalling/verletzungen/spieler/103427
 
I want us to start selling people. Even if we dont bring in people for now just start selling all these deadwood.
 
Why would he be surplus? He was picked for europa final?
Bailly is injury prone, we don't know how lindelof will settle in and why sell a full England international for 15 mill?

Is this just a case of BS

Jones should stay too, a fit Phil jones will get many games. Need him to stay fit though
 
yamo123x said:
Why would he be surplus? He was picked for europa final?
Bailly is injury prone, we don't know how lindelof will settle in and why sell a full England international for 15 mill?

Is this just a case of BS

Jones should stay too, a fit Phil jones will get many games. Need him to stay fit though
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Not really.
 
Jonno said:
I reckon I could slot in to a LVG side and give good performances.

Two holding midfielders would sit in front of our two centre backs, often playing against 1 striker. We would strangle the game with slow, sideways possession football.

Our centre backs had it pretty easy. Hence Smalling appeared to look pretty good.
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This is logic makes no sense. For Smalling to be touted as our best defender during those seasons, it would have had to be for his defensive plays during those seasons. So how the hell does two holding midfielders factor into this? Was it the same two holding midfielders that strapped Aguero every time we played Man City?
 
BenjaminP said:
Rooney was our best attacker 2013-14, so we shouldn't let him go?
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What the hell is this supposed to mean? This was three years ago and Rooney has long dipped since then. Smalling had one bad season out of the past 3. Please do better.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I never said he missed over 20 league games. The last season he missed exactly 20 games was all the way back in 2016/17 :smirk:

All stats from wikipedia.
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Everything Pogue said. Spot on (this post and past posts in this thread).
 
Pogue Mahone said:
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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Pogue Mahone said:
I never said he missed over 20 league games. The last season he missed exactly 20 games was all the way back in 2016/17 :smirk:

All stats from wikipedia.
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Amar__ said:
Yeah, that must be the reason why Mourinho kept picking him in our starting XI whenever he was fit, including the most important game of the season. :boring:
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Aye, I'm sure Bailly and Rojo (our two best CBs) being out for the final and Jones not being fully fit had nothing to with that.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
The stats on the link you flipping posted have him missing 21 games last season ffs!
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That's the highest amount of games he has every missed in a single season(this season) due to injury which shows it's most likely an abnormality because he has missed only 5, 5, 3 games due to injury in total in 15/16, 14/15 and 13/14 seasons respectively.

Pogue Mahone said:
I'm starting to doubt your reading comprehension skills at this point. Best we agree to disagree.
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I really should say i doubt your skills even more because you probably misconstrued appearance stats from wikipedia and automatically assumed whenever he failed to appear was due to injury. That's really poor or just lazy reasoning.

A player being on the bench(or just in the squad) and failing to come on during a match does not equate to missing a game due to injury. Appearance stats aren't of much use here.
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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Smalling is hands down the worst footballer in the squad with Rooney being a close second. He is an above average defender but shocking control with his feet. He also needs at least five touches to control the ball and more often then not he can only pass in the direction his body is facing. Jones was far superior this season over those months with Rojo and I would be more then happy to keep him over Smalling. West ham for 24 million would be nice.
 
sooner we get rid the better.

We need to stop being sentimental and nice to our players (Rooney, Smalling) and get rid when theyre not good enough or have been too inconsistent. I despise Real Madrid but they are bang on the money with how they treat their players. Dont put them on a pedestal and get rid when they can no longer consistently deliver week in week out.

Goodbye smalling!
 
GiddyUp said:
Smalling is hands down the worst footballer in the squad with Rooney being a close second. He is an above average defender but shocking control with his feet. He also needs at least five touches to control the ball and more often then not he can only pass in the direction his body is facing. Jones was far superior this season over those months with Rojo and I would be more then happy to keep him over Smalling. West ham for 24 million would be nice.
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That does my head in. The fact that he can't use his feet also means that he always runs around the ball to face the direction he intends to pass, which takes like 3sec, and then everyone in the stadium can work out where the pass is going long before he plays the ball. It must be a dream to play a high press against us whenever Smalling has the ball.

I completely agree with the rest of your post as well.
 
Transfermarkt injury records aren't accurate though either especially for older seasons. For example 13/14 he missed 6 games in a row but it doesn't have him a second injured. I'm on my phone so I'm not going to research it but I imagine he wasn't injured and not just randomly dropped for 6 games straight.
 
Pexbo said:
Any credibility that article might have had is completely gone. Mourinho said himself earlier this season something along the lines of "Rojo is an excellent centreback and that is good for him because he is a terrible left back, really really bad".
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:lol: I keep hearing about this. Any idea where I can find the quote?
 
Obiorahking_ said:
What the hell is this supposed to mean? This was three years ago and Rooney has long dipped since then. Smalling had one bad season out of the past 3. Please do better.
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You will always be a liability here as a defender if you are clumsy on the ball. We need to take control starting from our half with our defenders to start the attack.
I wouldn't mind less even if he goes to Arsenal, cuz I know it's not a great boost to their defense anyway.
I always thought he was not good enough to be a starting defender here, and Mourinho may have thought the same.

Also with Lindelof signing, that's a pretty straightforward message to our defenders.
Smalling would not risk losing his national team spot by not playing. He will never be satisfied to be on bench with World Cup coming up soon.
It's not all about profits and loss in terms of squad strength. We also need to look into their personal preference, and thats pretty clear.
 
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Smalling isn't even a back up for a top team. Decent defender, but his shocking lack of technique makes it difficult to actually play cohesive, quick football, completely draining any confidence at the back.

Against Spurs at the end of the recent season at WHL, Bailly summed it up for me with his reaction when Smalling, rather than simply touching the ball over the Spurs attacker to Bailly, booted it into row Z in a mad panic. It wasn't even a difficult touch to complete, but Smalling's horrid technique that drains all confidence out of him, lead him to play in his usual cowering, panicky fashion.
Spurs got the throw in and mounted another onslaught.

He's lost all belief in himself and that's corroded aspects of his game that were redeeming factors. It's not his fault, but the games up for him. Needs demoting to a West Brom or Stoke.
 
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On his day he's a brick wall but he's inconsistent and technically pretty dodgy. If he'd be happy to stay as a backup then I'd keep him but I imagine he wants more than that. He's a good player, and if West Brom are turning down £10m for Evans then we should be looking at close to £20m. I think he'll do well in a top half team.
 
We should keep him for squad depth especially when he isn't really on high wages. Unless it's using him to tempt Wenger into selling Sanchez to us
 
It would seem Mourinho doesn't want to keep him as he doesn't play through the pain barrier. He'd be a better buy for Leicester than Evans, I think.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Seems to me we've been saying that for years now, only to be shocked at the extent of the annual injury crisis.
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This year we didn't even have to use Tuanzebe at all until we need to rest players for the EL final so I'm not sure if that's really a concern at all, despite our defender's injury records must be the worst in the league. Next season Lindelof will be there who should be more injury-free than whoever he replaces, Tuanzebe also naturally should be more ready for PL action.
 
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top1whoisman said:
Aye, I'm sure Bailly and Rojo (our two best CBs) being out for the final and Jones not being fully fit had nothing to with that.
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Jones was back at the same time as Smalling and Mourinhho picked Smalling ahead of him, everyone realised that few games before the Ajax game considering how he rotated them in games before. Also, Smalling was first choice during the entire season, I think he missed just one ir two games when he was fit.
 
Smalling in good form can be a good rotational option on theory. The problem is unlike Jones, Smalling performed terrible when he's not match fit/ sharp enough. On the other hand, Joness seems to be able to hit the ground running when he is able to get on the pitch. A back up should have limited game time & being expected to perform despite the lack of previous gametime. Smalling probably wants guaranteed game time too as it's WC next summer with him close to late twenties its' not ideal for him just to be a rotation option
 
ilovethisgameahahah said:
We're looking for a backup CB according to Stone

http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/40236474?

Smalling and Jones are done.
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What the hell? CB is one area we are most blessed at in the reserves. TFM was a CB, Tuanzebe is too, Ro-Shawn is coming through and even the U18's have good talent here. Unless this is a one year Blanc type signing (except John Terry) then this will be buying deadwood that blocks the path of the kids.
 
OohAahMartial said:
What the hell? CB is one area we are most blessed at in the reserves. TFM was a CB, Tuanzebe is too, Ro-Shawn is coming through and even the U18's have good talent here. Unless this is a one year Blanc type signing (except John Terry) then this will be buying deadwood that blocks the path of the kids.
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We need to keep Smalling or bring in an experienced back up.
We have had a centre back crisis for the last few years and with one in and Rojo out we will still be short with normal injuries. Jones will be injured before Sept is out and Blind is only a stop gap.
The young players you mention have potential but little experience yet, do you think that they are prepared and ready to play against the top CL teams? Certainly Jose is unlikely to trust them for this.
 
I think if the right offer comes in, Smalling and potentially Jones are history. I think Jose simply feels that they cost him too much at the end of the season and whilst it's not there fault, for two relatively young lads their body's are now made of tissue paper. Also their bar isn't high enough imo to be starters for Utd and both consistently are a key mistake waiting to happen.
 
edgar allan said:
We need to keep Smalling or bring in an experienced back up.
We have had a centre back crisis for the last few years and with one in and Rojo out we will still be short with normal injuries. Jones will be injured before Sept is out and Blind is only a stop gap.
The young players you mention have potential but little experience yet, do you think that they are prepared and ready to play against the top CL teams? Certainly Jose is unlikely to trust them for this.
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Hopefully we will only have Rojo injured when the season begins and will get him back in the New Year so its just a few months to rely on Bailly, Lindelof, Jones, Blind, Tuanzebe, TFM - should be fine. Its later in the season when injuries start mounting that its problematic. Blooding Tuanzebe and TFM with sub appearances and Cup games so they are ready if another injury crisis occurs is also important.
 
Smalling is fast, strong and our only defender who has great aerial presence. Of course he was injured too often, but Rojo himself missed more than 50 games in last three seasons and will be out till January. He also wasn't better than Smalling during his tenure at the club.

There is no guarantee that Lindelof will be succesfull from the start and our youngsters are too inexperienced to relly on them yet. If he is happy to stay, fight for his place I don't see why the club would sell him this summer (unless we've already found somebody who is clearly better and more reliable than him).
 
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