[In Rainbows]

It goes both ways. People on here have been acting like Jones is always great when he's fit when that just isn't true. He's always been like every other CB we have. They have great periods where they convince you they're amazing and then they go through a spell where they're awful. Smalling and Rojo have gone through this. However, strictly speaking this season he has been good despite yesterday's atrocious performance. People have a "what have you done for me lately" mentality. That goes for the pro-Jones side and the anti-Jones side cropping up after 1 bad performance.

 

[Andersons Dietician]

One poor game and the idiots are out with their pitchforks.
He has been our best defender for almost a year now. He still is.

That’s your opinion, it’s the same as how people were declaring Rojo our best defender after 6 weeks of good form. Jones Just isn’t a top level defender. He has good moments, and is great at repairing his mistakes but like others have said the sign of a good defender is someone who isn’t sliding about all the time making last ditch tackles and blocks.

 

[Kostov]

He has been one of my favorite players even since he joined. I overlooked stupid errors in the past, but this is the final straw for me. I lost any confidence in him, I want him gone.

 

[Skills]

If he's poor in the air, I'd hate to know what you think of our other defenders. Jones is probably our second best after Smalling.

Jones certainly isn't 'good' in the air, but I wouldn't say he's poor either.

That's a key issue we have at the moment. Other than Smalling, all our other defenders are at best average in the air, and some are flat out poor.

He's just a couple of inches too short and doesn't have the leap to make up for it. His timing is often quite good, but he just can't get high enough.

Bailly on the other hand is tall enough but his timing and positioning is awful when contesting aerial balls.

 

[Robbie Boy]

That was an utter shit-show from silly billy Philly last night.

 

[roonster09]

The top banner says it all. In 20 games he has played, we have kept 13 cleansheets. That's superb record.

1 bad game and now he is back to shit again.

 

[MadDogg]

Fellaini costs us a penalty against Everton and Old Trafford start booing him during his warmup. But Smalling puts on a horror show against Chelsea last season and costs us almost four goals and it’s “just one game”.

This again. You do realise that having to constantly talk about that match, a match in which Smalling shouldn't have even been playing in because of injury and after which he had a month or so break before he was fit again, is you doing the exact same thing. If he was so bad, there would be other matches you could point to where he was similarly bad. But instead people keep bringing that one up which basically hurts their own argument.

 

[Nick.]

One of the worst performances I have ever seen from a United player. Memphis would be proud.

 

[Martia11]

One poor game and everyone is losing their heads. He has been our best defender this season and we should stick with him.

 

[Kostov]

One poor game and everyone is losing their heads. He has been our best defender this season and we should stick with him.

But that is the most painful thing, our best defender and maybe the best CB in the PL this season does that. He let us down in such an important match.

 

[Hammondo]

Against good opposition and he usually gets found out a bit.

 

[POF]

I'm not making excuses for him but at least he has some balls and plays with some level of responsibility. Unlike Smalling who is so afraid od making a mistake. That Being saif I can't wait for Bailly to return

For a defender, that's not a bad thing if it means he doesn't make a mistake!

Jones has been excellent this season, better than I thought he could be. He was left very exposed against Spurs and made a big mistake for the second goal but there were a lot worse performers for United than Jones.

 

[Martia11]

But that is the most painful thing, our best defender and maybe the best CB in the PL this season does that. He let us down in such an important match.

Yeah, true that. He really let us down today but everyone has that odd bad game and I am hoping it was just an off day and he bounces back strong. However, it sometimes feels like some posters on here just desperately want to see him make a mistake so they can go on about they were right. The same with Lingard. I am sure people are just waiting for him to make a mistake so they can go back to claiming how he will never be good enough for us.

 

[red4ever 79]

Dreadful, absolutely dreadful. To allow Kane to outjump him for the first was bad, but the og. Oh dear

 

[Nick7]

But that is the most painful thing, our best defender and maybe the best CB in the PL this season does that. He let us down in such an important match.

Shit happens. Even to the best players. It's over, hopefully he regains form next time out and can put it behind him.

 

[ivaldo]

Hideous game. That’s it, that’s all. Doesnt mean he isn’t one of the best defenders in the league.

 

[Ardis]

Phil should be playing for West Ham. He is your typical, limited British defender.

 

[Jim Beam]

He's having a very good season and has been one of our best players so far, one game can't change that.

Only don't particularly like Jones - Smalling combo, even if individual errors were on Jones side last night.

 

[AP88]

For the second goal? He was just pathetic for not trusting his weaker foot and ended up looking like a clown. It was a simple clearance had he used his left foot.

He didn’t even have to ‘kick’ it with his left - just position his foot so the ball hits his instep and it deflects away from the danger area. It’s a shambles that a player who’s spent 7 years at one of the biggest clubs in Europe isn’t comfortable enough to deal with a ball on his weaker foot. These players could give an hour a day every day neutralising their weaknesses and becoming complete footballers; that they don’t is one of English football’s detracting factors.

He was moronic for a goal against Leicester as well, which people seem to have forgotten about.

 

[RedSky]

Again with this “one” poor game rubbish.

I can’t stand how the likes of Smalling and Jones get excused on here for having “one” poor game and yet the likes of Rojo and Fellaini have stigmas and reputations attached to them for doing less.

Fellaini costs us a penalty against Everton and Old Trafford start booing him during his warmup. But Smalling puts on a horror show against Chelsea last season and costs us almost four goals and it’s “just one game”.

Jones blasts it into his own net under zero pressure and its “just one game” but Rojo gives away a penalty against Watford and he’s a liability.

I can see why people don’t rate Fellaini but I can’t see why those same people would rate Smalling. It reeks of hypocrisy and blind favouritism.

I blame the English media. The pundits never point out how much rubbish the English players are. If a foreigner did what Phil Jones did tonight, you’d hear the commentators talk about how much he’s cost his team tonight.

I don't often agree with you, but i'll agree with you on this one. When I think of excellent CBs at United I look back at Vidic, Ferdinand, Bruce, Stam. Those were excellent CBs and the leagues best. Phil Jones simply isn't in that caliber, he's a peg or two below them. That's fine, but we shouldn't be expecting a player like Jones to be a starter at United and hoping for us to win trophies on a regular basis. He's just not consistent enough of a defender to do it. We've been blessed to have an exceptional goalkeeper in De Gea and I think it's protecting our defense from the criticism they should receive. I had hoped that Jones would gradually remove the mistakes from his game with experience, but at 25 years old this should be happening by now and it's simply not.

We should be signing an experienced CB to partner Bailly this summer and start to finally get rid of some of our CBs.

 

[Nytram Shakes]

Arguably the best defender at United, very poor performance toinight.

that's it isn't it, people are throwing the guy to the wolfs, and undoubtedly it was a shit performance last night, but one bad game doesn't make a bad player.

I will throughly admit about 18 months ago i was writing off Jones as injury prone, inconsistent with dodgy positioning, but i'm always happy to be proved wrong and starting last season when he formed a great partnership with Rojo and going into this year he has been out most consistent defender. Granted maybe his form has never quite matched Bailly's form during his first few months here, but on average i would say his form has surpassed even Bailly's.

Now however people seem to have forgotten the last 18 months have happened and acting like Jones has always been a liability, when the truth is players improve which Jones has, but even really good players have bad games, Look at Pogba and Sanchez yesterday they where Dire does that mean their crap? no!

 

[Tapori]

Some real idiots generally.
Jones is not the best of the best but he's a solid top defender who's peformed well these past 2 seasons and one bad game doesn't make him the next Boumsong or Cygan.

 

[Grande]

Dreadful, absolutely dreadful. To allow Kane to outjump him for the first was bad, but the og. Oh dear

Speaking of ourselves in third person again, are we? ...

 

[Jaybomb]

To think some people in this thread are calling him the best CB in the league.... feck me.

 

[AP88]

What he did last night is forgivable....if he’s currently on the training pitch with an academy kid dealing with 500 crosses from the right wing; anything less and he’s unprofessional.

The lost header for the first goal wasn’t as much of an error, and the other players around him were equally culpable, as was Jose IMO; I think the plan was to target Young in that position with that ball, once they knew he was starting ahead of the far more robust, stronger and better jumping Shaw.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Jesus wept. The absolute state of the knee-jerking in this thread.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

What he did last night is forgivable....if he’s currently on the training pitch with an academy kid dealing with 500 crosses from the right wing; anything less and he’s unprofessional.

The lost header for the first goal wasn’t as much of an error, and the other players around him were equally culpable, as was Jose IMO; I think the plan was to target Young in that position with that ball, once they knew he was starting ahead of the far more robust, stronger and better jumping Shaw.

What does that even mean? That top class professional footballers don't ever make hideous mistakes like Jones did last night? They do. It happens all the time. They're still top class professional footballers.

 

[MikeKing]

He has these mistakes in him. I've seen it, even on the level in the reserves. He has qualities but he is overrated on here i think.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

What was he thinking? Why did he use his right foot? So unprofessional! Get rid!

 

[Ban]

Has a good season overall,makes a mistake and all hell breaks loose.

 

[Robbie Boy]

Has a good season overall,makes a mistake and all hell breaks loose.

He has an absolute mare, to be completely fair and he's naturally going to be berated for it. Agree though, he's been damn good since Mourinho arrived.

 

[Verminator]

Our best cb had a bad day at the office.

I had given up on him ever being good enough, as he kept running past the ball in midfield, by over-committing. Since he seemed to finally eradicate this from his game, he has been our rock.
The Spurs game was an outlier, but had elements of his prior weakness, in that he sees the danger when the midfield leaves us exposed, and feels the need to be the hero that sorts it. When he does, he completely abdicates his prior responsibility, and leaves us exposed. A smart coach would target this trait, and bypass him with one-twos.

To summarise, he's excellent with decent midfield protection, which was woefully lacking at Spurs, but not clever enough to judge when not to rush out and plug a gap.

He may still have had a mare at Spurs, because it can happen, but the level of exposure he was subjected to was due to tactical farce, and a dereliction of duty by Pogba.

 

[ash_86]

We need to come out of overrating our players. How many top European teams in the world would Jones get into? He is an above average defender that has at least one mistake in him per game. If we want to achieve greatness, we need to look for dominant defenders.

 

[RexHamilton]

One poor game and everyone is losing their heads. He has been our best defender this season and we should stick with him.

He has had a decent season. But this One Poor Game rubbish needs to stop. He's had a lot of poor games for us. Nobody has "the pitchforks" because Phil Jones had a bad game. They're out because he's another bad game. He's rarely fit. When he is, he's almost always the topic of these kinds of conversations in threads.

Our goalkeeper has been our player of the season for 3 of the past 4 seasons (The Sir Matt Busby award). When did Schmeichel or Van der Sar ever win it? Never. Not because they were bad goalies, but because they weren't saving us time after time. De Gea has been phenomenal for us for 4 seasons now and it's because our defense isn't good enough. Smalling and Jones have been here for that whole time. They are not good enough to be first choice for us anymore.

 

[CM]

Up until the own goal he was probably one of our better players. He lost the aerial duel with Kane but honestly was a bit unfortunate it ended up in a goal - it took a lucky deflection and then landed at the feet of an unmarked Eriksen in the box.

Obviously he should've done better with the own goal and after that his performance deteriorated (as did everyone else's) but in the period between the goals he made a series of important blocks, tackles and interceptions - one after a very lax bit of defending from Matic. It certainly wasn't his best game but I think it's unfair to single out any of the defenders when our problems were clearly symptomatic of us getting swamped in midfield and the inability to hold possession.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

As has been mentioned Phil is great at recovering his own mistakes. That is fine, except to be classed a world class defender you really shouldn't be making those mistakes in the first place. He has been playing long enough at the top level you would have thought to have learnt his lesson. Apparently not. You can more or less guarantee one of these mistakes every game, but he gets away with it through sheer survival instinct. Last night he didn't. I still prefer him over scares silly Smalling. I just hope he does not make a costly mistake in a game that seriously costs United either winning a trophy or getting to a final. I actually think it is more likely the other end of the field will cost us that way.

 

[tomaldinho1]

We need to come out of overrating our players. How many top European teams in the world would Jones get into? He is an above average defender that has at least one mistake in him per game. If we want to achieve greatness, we need to look for dominant defenders.

This is about right.

Spurs entire back line is a notch above ours + Dembele infront is sumptuous. We need to do some very clever summer transfer work + hopefully Bailly gets fit and stays fit.

 

[Ardis]

This. Chris Smalling and Phil Jones wouldn't be in the starting line-up for City, Tottenham or Chelsea. Both of them are average English central defenders that should be playing for mediocre sides such as Crystal Palace, West Ham, Watford etc.

 

[IAmAWinner]

So he's shit again after his 2nd bad game this season. 20 appearances, 13 clean sheets. He's shit.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

He has had a decent season. But this One Poor Game rubbish needs to stop. He's had a lot of poor games for us. Nobody has "the pitchforks" because Phil Jones had a bad game. They're out because he's another bad game. He's rarely fit. When he is, he's almost always the topic of these kinds of conversations in threads.

Our goalkeeper has been our player of the season for 3 of the past 4 seasons (The Sir Matt Busby award). When did Schmeichel or Van der Sar ever win it? Never. Not because they were bad goalies, but because they weren't saving us time after time. De Gea has been phenomenal for us for 4 seasons now and it's because our defense isn't good enough. Smalling and Jones have been here for that whole time. They are not good enough to be first choice for us anymore.

Jones has technically "been here" but he's been injured so much he might as well not have been. He just needs three more appearances and he'll already have played more football than in 4 of his 6 previous seasons at the club. And it just so happens that him playing in the vast majority of our games this season has coincided with us conceding the joint lowest amount of goals in the league. And this is without having any chance to build up a settled central defensive partnership. All things considered, he's been pretty fecking good this season and the abuse he's getting after arguably his one and only poor performance this season is mental.