Love him but he simply misses far too many games. I really hope next season he can stay relatively injury free but I doubt it.
19
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 29
- Clean sheets
- 6
- Goals
- 1
- Assists
- 1
- Yellow cards
- 1
- Status
Real sold us a dud. Its time for the uncomfortable questions to be asked.
I think the lesson which we failed to learn before is if a big club is selling us a star player it’s because they’re injured, past it or both.
The only issue with using Varane as an example was that Real Madrid made him an offer, he rejected it and wanted to leave for several seasons.
He has an elegant playing style and a big reputation, which I think dupes people into thinking he's been good for us.
He hasn't, and if he can't stay fit then he'll never play himself into form.
He hasn't, and if he can't stay fit then he'll never play himself into form.
He has missed more games for us than in 3 seasons prior at Real.
Isnt this his first injury since the one that put him on the shelf? I feel his injury record is overstated on here
Wanna trade Madrid CB duds?
He probably can't be arsed. Imagine going from real Madrid to our shambles of a club 
Feels like confirmation bias to me.
No he hasn’t
I still like him but I really hope him and Ronaldo are our last superstar statement signings for a while because we're having terrible luck with them. He's injury prone and approaching 30, never a good sign.
I’ve seen Phil Jones have better games for us. Seems he’s also made of glass and signed with us for the money.
Harry is having a shocker of a season, but at least he’s available for selection.
Definitely.
Smalling bucked the trend by having had a very decent injury record for his last few seasons, then becoming injury-prone as soon as his move to Roma became permanent.
Another one who signed up for the Manchester United pension plan.
Is he still any good?
No idea.
Sums up his time here so far really.
No idea.
Sums up his time here so far really.
I feel like he had a few fairly lengthy spells out early on for us as well? I could be mixing him up with someone else though to be fair.
He didn't ok. Thought I read somewhere he had missed 17 games in total over 3 seasons. My bad.
Good thing I am homeless, at least I will not die in a kitchen fire.
I do think that if he had a top no nonsense CB beside him, he would be class. He's more the Ferdinand type, let your Vidic etc do the heading brick walls and he mops up the rest. The idea of him and Maguire was sound but Maguires confidence (no doubt some will say ability too) leaves any partner guessing.
We were desperate to wax lyrical about his early matches because....well we were desperate. I wonder if Arsenal's CB has been better (the £50mill one)
I think you’re right. Couldn’t have been longer than his first couple of seasons though.
I always felt he got unfairly judged by fans by being lumped together with Jones, despite there being nothing whatsoever they had in common, and despite their hardly ever playing together.
I'm just hoping that we haven't ended up buying fine china 
Has probably had to do more defending this season than in his career at Real.
Hope he gets over his injury and can toughen the feck up next season.
Hope he gets over his injury and can toughen the feck up next season.
You're going to hate me.
I think he was one of our most overrated players ever. The more he was out of the team and especially when he went away, the more people looked back on him with rose tinted glasses and ignored the lapses in concentration, composure and workrate that made him such a bang average defender.
In contrast, I've always felt Phil Jones got a bit of a hard time. He became a laughing stock despite never giving a fraction less than his all in the shirt, because he pulled funny faces and was absolutely destroyed by injuries.
When fit and with a run of games, I've always thought Jones was twice the defender Smalling was.
I totally get that's a controversial and unpopular opinion though.
Controversial maybe but I agree with this. Smalling was always capable of isolated excellent performances but never looked convincing for a run of consecutive games. He seemed to always have an absolute shit show up his sleeve.
On the very rare occasions Jones managed to stay fit for a run of consecutive games he showed much more consistency than Smalling ever did. The Rojones partnership being a good example.
Ha!
I thought Jones was an excellent player “when fit” and certainly didn’t deserve the ridicule he suffered (and indeed still does). He had really good runs of form alongside both Rojo and Bailly; for some reason he needed a “rash” player alongside him to give him composure. Earlier on he had some excellent games in midfield and at right back. He undoubtedly had far greater potential than Smalling.
I’d never really rated Smalling, despite some undoubtedly good games under SAF, and he seemed particularly poor (as did Evans) under Moyes. Once he’d been given a decent run under LvG he really seemed to blossom and I thought he was great. His hopelessness on the ball got greatly exaggerated; he looked a lot more awkward than he actually was, and rarely played us into trouble. Shoving Blind alongside him made up for any shortcomings in any case.
You’re right about the lapses in concentration though. Rio had them as well, but with him they rarely resulted in a complete loss of composure. It was the one thing that stopped him being a top defender, and I actually reckon he didn’t get called out for it enough. But then people were always criticising him for being about to get sent off for shirt pulling (was he ever?) and other daft stuff.
I don’t remember much being wrong with his workrate. He had this way of sidling up to an opponent and getting the ball off them without them seeming to notice, which I thought was pretty cool.
He wasn’t great in his final year or so for us, and has been injured a lot recently, so I wasn’t particularly upset when he left. I’ll leave it there rather than comment on his replacement
Ha!
I thought Jones was an excellent player “when fit” and certainly didn’t deserve the ridicule he suffered (and indeed still does). He had really good runs of form alongside both Rojo and Bailly; for some reason he needed a “rash” player alongside him to give him composure. Earlier on he had some excellent games in midfield and at right back. He undoubtedly had far greater potential than Smalling.
I’d never really rated Smalling, despite some undoubtedly good games under SAF, and he seemed particularly poor (as did Evans) under Moyes. Once he’d been given a decent run under LvG he really seemed to blossom and I thought he was great. His hopelessness on the ball got greatly exaggerated; he looked a lot more awkward than he actually was, and rarely played us into trouble. Shoving Blind alongside him made up for any shortcomings in any case.
You’re right about the lapses in concentration though. Rio had them as well, but with him they rarely resulted in a complete loss of composure. It was the one thing that stopped him being a top defender, and I actually reckon he didn’t get called out for it enough. But then people were always criticising him for being about to get sent off for shirt pulling (was he ever?) and other daft stuff.
I don’t remember much being wrong with his workrate. He had this way of sidling up to an opponent and getting the ball off them without them seeming to notice, which I thought was pretty cool.
He wasn’t great in his final year or so for us, and has been injured a lot recently, so I wasn’t particularly upset when he left. I’ll leave it there rather than comment on his replacement
Workrate was probably a poor choice of words to be fair. More focus and concentration.
Rio did have lapses as well - it's just his athleticism was such that he almost always get himself back out of the holes he put himself in.
My biggest pet peeves with Smalling, was his penchant for going to clear the ball with the wrong leg and it almost always going wrong.
It's something you see technically very strong defenders doing sometimes - they'll use the outside of their left foot to clear a low ball that's coming in from the left (defenders right) and play a quick, accurate ball to a midfielder or wide player.
But Smalling had neither the technique nor the composure for such finesse and my abiding memory of him is slicing seemingly routine balls into more threatening situations.
Interesting! I really don’t remember that. Suppose I should watch some old games.
It always impressed me how little his awkwardness on the ball got us into trouble.
I don’t think this is controversial at all. I really like Jones and always have, think he was far better than Smalling but for his injury issues.
Starting to get Di Maria vibes from him. Not the snake side obviously I wouldn't be surprised at all if he was gone in a season or two.
Wouldn’t be worst idea to move him on in the summer if there is any interest, was a short term signing based on misplaced idea we were close to competing. He’s a good player but 29 in the summer and not convinced he’ll play many games over next 2-3 years. Think have to be open to letting pretty much any player go now.
Wouldn't surprise me his agent was looking at moves for him, regardless of his average form he's still one of the players who's reputation is still high.
he hasn’t been fit enough and that’s the problem. Be isn’t old but he gets injured too much
The annoying injury was the one he picked up playing for france
But yeah we haven't seen enough to know if he's good for us
The times he has played it seems like he's made a mistake which has lead to a goal
But yeah we haven't seen enough to know if he's good for us
The times he has played it seems like he's made a mistake which has lead to a goal
Since 18-19 season till 20-21 season he missed 13 games for Madrid. He has missed 14 games for United this season alone.
https://www.transfermarkt.us/raphael-varane/verletzungen/spieler/164770
Missing again today. Colour me surprised..
Maybe we really should have gone for Torres
Based on absolutely nothing, but he strikes me as someone who just isn't up for it. Not that I could really blame him.
- Status