mufcwarm92
Full Member
By far the worst game I've ever seen him play, but I still think he's our best centre half.
Disappointing to watch him nowadays. A couple of years ago, in top form, you'd have thought he's going to be an absolute brilliant CB but seems like he has regressed. Too many half arsed performances lately
he was appaling last night, but still feel he is our best center back, his performances over the period of vidic long injury showed a level of consistency and quality yet to be anyway near matched by smalling or jones
You'd think he was as bad as Djemba-Djemba judging by the comments here. Evans has been good the vast majority of his games for us playing alongside both Vidic,Rio,Smalling,Jones and whoever else he was beside.Bit of rubbish here. Last season he was up/down but the season before that he was brilliant and people thought he had a shot at being in the team of the season. Cut him some slack.
He has yet to show the ability to be the leader of the defence. In that respect, it is hard to justify that he is the best centre back. For me, when Shaw is fit, I would like to see Jones partner Rojo. And, of course, ditching the back three formation.
Disappointing to watch him nowadays. A couple of years ago, in top form, you'd have thought he's going to be an absolute brilliant CB but seems like he has regressed.
i dont think jones has shown that either.... and ive never seen jones perform to the level evans did when he was playing regualry a few seasons back, so would still pick evans. and i honestly dont no how good rojo is at left back as ive only seen him play left back.He has yet to show the ability to be the leader of the defence. In that respect, it is hard to justify that he is the best centre back. For me, when Shaw is fit, I would like to see Jones partner Rojo. And, of course, ditching the back three formation.
i think has a lot to do with the fact he was playing reguarly, vidic came back and he was dropped and i just dont think his confidence has recoveredDisappointing to watch him nowadays. A couple of years ago, in top form, you'd have thought he's going to be an absolute brilliant CB but seems like he has regressed. Too many half arsed performances lately
To be honest, I never found Smalling bad. I like him a lot actually but then I might just be biasedThis could be a sentence about any one of Jones Evans or Smalling couldn't it? Shame really
Might be true but I just find it hard to believe that a professional football player cant regain his confidence within 3 or more yearsi think has a lot to do with the fact he was playing reguarly, vidic came back and he was dropped and i just dont think his confidence has recovered
its not 3 years its about 18 months, and last season with all the chopping and changing was hard for any player to get any level of consistancyMight be true but I just find it hard to believe that a professional football player cant regain his confidence within 3 or more years
He's only had one good season? Okay then.Currently 26 years old, not had a good season other than one a few years back, you'd hope he would come into his prime about now
if we talk about deadwood and average players, who are not United standard, put him on that list if he wasnt already. Injury prone, cant defend, looks scared when someone runs at him, all over the place and makes costly mistakes. Reminds me of Vermaelen. Just a standard midtable premier league defender. The guy is 26, should massively step up after the patience we had with him, played yesterday like a U19 academy player. Jones and Smalling would now been further in their career if they got the playing time Evans got. If Jones had a game like yesterday, people would even slaughter him in 2 years for that. He is in the Cleverley, Fletcher and Hernandez category now. Just waiting for another game to prove that he is useless when Rio or Vidic arent around him, probably will be injured in 2 weeks. Maybe Barcelona will be interested after we bench him. Just the thought of Diego Costa running at him and bullying him will be hopefully enough for everybody to realise that our Jonny never was good enough and probably never will be. Fergie got decent performances out of him, now he really is a complete liability.
The back 3 is being used out of necessity, to accomodate other players, because we don't have the squad to play 433, and in a certain way to send a message to the board, imo. It's not his preferred formation (and wasn't for Holland until Strootman got injured), and it'll probably be ditched as soon as he has the resources to play something else. Van Gaal knows exactly what he's doing.i think has a lot to do with the fact he was playing reguarly, vidic came back and he was dropped and i just dont think his confidence has recovered
He's only had one good season? Okay then.
He's only had one good season? Okay then.
still one more then smalling or jonesCurrently 26 years old, not had a good season other than one a few years back, you'd hope he would come into his prime about now
i dont think he would have spent all summer working on onw formation if he planned to abondon it as soon as he boight some diffrent players, seems bizzare to work for a month on a forthanion for just 3 perimer league games before the window shuts then change it as he changed personel.The back 3 is being used out of necessity, to accomodate other players, because we don't have the squad to play 433, and in a certain way to send a message to the board, imo. It's not his preferred formation (and wasn't for Holland until Strootman got injured), and it'll probably be ditched as soon as he has the resources to play something else. Van Gaal knows exactly what he's doing.
still one more then smalling or jones
By far the worst game I've ever seen him play, but I still think he's our best centre half.
smalling is acually 25 in november... so no kid by any imagination....but i do get your point that these players are younger and have has less chance to turn in a decent season.When you consider Smalling didn't play professional football until 3/4 years ago, and Jones season before last was his 2nd full season, and still only getting sub appearances. Jonny's been here nearly 9 years and is 27 in Jan, whereas
Smalling is 23 and jones turned 22 this year... completely different kettle of fish
i still think he is regarded as the best becuase he is the only defender we have who has shown that he can perform consistently at the top level, now i agree with you we probably shouldnt be in a position that evans is the best center back we have when he has only really had one top quality season, we should have bought an established quality center back, but we didnt and it dosnt look like we will.@Nytram Shakes
Good post, I'd suggest he is our best overall defender, my problem is the level he's at and the fact he's regarded as the best, if he was a squad player, lovely. Smalling & Jones breaking through, and Jones has about 4 seasons less experience than Evans, so he is a kid in comparison and Smalling, while being 24 wasn't playing proper footbll 5 years ago, so time at the top has been 2-3 years for them and 6-7 years for Jonny, ignoring the first 2/3 years of Jonny here.
I don't think we should sell him, but typically we have 2x top class CB's, 2x young emerging centre back and 1x squad player/utlity cover and currently, I'd use him as the 1 extra, Smalling Jones as upcoming and say we need 2 to CB's, but I feel with Evans here, that won't happen.
I disagree. The revisionism in this thread is a little bit ridiculous. Evans had two good seasons (08/09 and 12/13) and one world class season (11/12). You can even throw in last season (first half when he was fit) because there's definitely a case to be made for that, as we looked much better with him in the team. That doesn't excuse his awful performance. Someone with his experience should produce much better.Currently 26 years old, not had a good season other than one a few years back, you'd hope he would come into his prime about now
if you tak the argument that we have a lot of center backs already and thats why we didnt buy, and we need to sell, i certainly don't think Evans should be the firs for the chop, hands down should be smalling, i no he hasnt had a long professional career, but at nearly 25, he simply hasn't shown enough to justify any long term faith in him.
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id say evans is positionaly better and more reliable and while he dosnt have great orgaistional abilities the light years ahead of smalling. smalling maybe a cleaner tackler and quicker, but hes hardly played a more then one good game at a time for us since he has been here.He's already a better defender than Evans can ever hope to be. Why don't we just play Carrick at CB if ball playing ability is all that matters?
What pure defensive characteristics/attributes is Evans better at than Smalling? Genuinely, I'm baffled. He's on a completely different planet aerially, he's much quicker and much cleaner tackler. He's never been sent off for us and doesn't get stupid yellows as well. His on ball ability is a problem, but your CBs need to be good defenders first and it should be something that can be fixed. Is is Evans' mystical ability to lead and organize the defence which is somehow only present when Rio Ferdinand or Nemanja Vidic happen to be his partners?
He was terrible, sure. He's still our best CB, though. Jones and Smalling haven't proven themselves any better, far from it. Rojo? No idea, really. I've seen him at CB a total of...one and a half times, I think. Hopefully he can go in and add something right away. We need that.
Arguably our best CB. Look who he has for competition though, Smalling and Jones, two players who haven't been developed the right way in their natural positions and still lack experience. He should be our best CB without a shadow of doubt but that's not the case.