Bit harsh on Smalling.
If you have watched the game so many times, I take it that you noticed that the Swansea front line were largely in the pocket of Jones, Smalling and Blackett. Jones and Smalling's distribution was poor admittedly, but Bony hardly did anything other than block Jones for the first goal. Jones got beat for speed by a faster man, well who would have guessed that.
Young, Herrera, Mata, Fletcher and Lingaard/Adnan did not do enough. Fellani could quite easily have been sent off. Rooney was a passenger. Not quite sure what was the reason for Hernandez coming off, I can only assume tactical as I did not see anything really dreadful.
We do not have a leader on the field. Rooney is not that type of player that grabs control of the game and lifts other players. Many of the players are expecting someone else to do something magical. Amazing how the confidence was sapped after the first and second goal. The team did not believe they could come back. I put that down to a lack of confidence in the front line to get the ball in the net. We have always leaked goals but had a forward line that will find us a goal. We haven't had that since last season.[/QOUTE]
You're right that I was harsh regarding Smalling but I think he have the ability to be our best defender. That's why I was disappointed.
My impression is that we miss Carrick a lot more then expected. Fletcher is a good b2b player but not the solution and our new nr 6. We need to buy a replacement for Carrick, and the that's fast.
With Rojo we will add speed and physicality, we will need it. I really looking forward to see him and Shaw togheter.
