It might have but it would have taken a well timed run and pass. Valencia's failure to step out meant they had a huge margin for error on both elements. It was horrible defending all round, really. All the more frustrating because it involved four players usually known for their defensive smarts (Blind, Smalling, Schneiderlin and Darmian) If any of them had done their job a bit better then Valencia's naivety would have been much less of an issue (still an issue though)
The comment about "some people" wasn't aimed at you btw.
@Nobby style has been a fervent defender of Valencia for ages (sometimes with good reason, sometimes not so much) which seems to have translated into a desire to constantly belittle Valencia's replacement, Darmian. Who's had a couple of ropey displays but has generally been excellent (i.e. better than valencia)
The thing is, Valencia is measured by milimetrics for everything negative, and usually completely ignored for anything positive, whereas Darmian is completely measured the opposite. For anything right, his balls are polished to a beautiful sheen, and not many people notice his feck ups. I´m just going to measure Darmian equally. The guy has been at fault on four goals in this young year already, been skinned several times, has been yanked off at halftime for being shite, and provides basically zero offense, which for a Manchester United fullback is a sin, yet by reading the praise of him, you would think he's the second coming of christ. The guy is usually decent and has very good moments defensively, but he is massively overrated in response to the bandwagon of hate for Valencia.
Sooo, tell me I wasn´t absolutely spot on on my criticism of Darmian. I´m not making this up just to "belittle Valencia´s replacement."
Let´s continue to evaluate his play once again. It´s only fair to measure with the same microscope that is on Valencia.
At fault for goals . . . . yep, add two more to that tally after that embarrassing display at the Emirates. That´s about 6 now, and we´ve barely begun the year.
Another yellow card . . . . yep, to save himself from being skinned again he resorts to clumsy fouls ending in dangerous free kicks. How many yellow cards already? 4? 5? Same thing over and over. Careless fouls to make up for shite defending.
Zero chemistry with Mata . . . once again mata turned to shit as they have no understanding. Mata looked better when Tony came on, and seems to be one of our best players with Valencia behind him making runs and giving him width.
Replaced at halftime for being shite . . . the second time now in 8 PL matches. In other words, he´s been so bad in 1/4 of our PL matches he´s needed to be replaced by Valencia who has shored things up. On what footballing planet is a defender considered good when he´s yanked up for being shite 25% of the time? And if you look at our two CL matches, he was absolute crap against PSV, allowing goals and all, so he´s been shite in 50% of our CL matches as well.
Taking on a man . . . . I don´t think I´ve ever seen him take on a man. Ever! This is a Man United fullback we´re talking about. Absolutely indefensible.
Going forward, creating chances . . . . I think he´s the worst offensive Manchester United fullback I´ve ever seen going forward. We can´t judge his crossing cause it´s such a rare occurrence, and they usually suck when it happens. As we´ve seen with the criticism of Valencia, completely unacceptable for a United fullback.
Defending against elite wingers . . . raped by Sanchez, raped even by Tadic, probably the second best winger he faced. Pathetic.
I´ve also noticed that in the last two matches, not only were all the goals scored coming from Darmian´s side, but that both Wolsburgh and Arsenal were always attacking Darmian´s side. You would think with United playing two converted wingers as fullbacks, opposing sides would be attacking them. However, Wolfsburg was running through our left side like water through a sieve, and Arsenal attacked the right side when LVG moved the Italian over there with embarrassing results.
I still haven't figured out what it is people think Darmian is actually good at.
When he has to defend, he doesn't do it very well. When he has to attack, he doesn't do it very well. When he has to play football, he doesn't do it very well. He isn't amazingly fast, or big, or strong. So what is it people think he's good at?
I've only seen him play ok so far, and that's against non threat teams like Sunderland, where you could play a kid there and they'd look ok more often than not.
I mean fair enough it's his first season, but that's an excuse for being a bit shite, not an excuse to pretend he hasn't been.
Totally agree with this. He isn´t even in the same league as a Luke Shaw.