Smalling / on loan to Roma 1 year

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Regulus Arcturus Black said:
You doubt that Smalling, who has been first choice for 6 years, is a bit peeved at clearly being relegated to fourth choice at best?

I'm fairly certain Smalling is not at all happy about the situation and it's not about "giving up", if you see yourself as a first team starter and you've been made fourth choice, you look for a move if you're ambitious.

Smalling is doing the right thing here in my opinion if he does complete this move.
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He hasns't reguarly been first choice, and signings like Bailly and Lindelof were supposed to relegate him. I'm sure he's unhappy at being dropped to fourth, but he's fought back before and did well. I doubt he decided to leave three matches into the season rather than try and fight for his place at least until January.
 
GBBQ said:
He's 29 years old so the likelihood is that the 2020 Euros are his last chance to play in a major tournament for England. He wont make the squad as 4th choice for United, gambling on injuries for game time.
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He hasn't made the squad as first choice either... Southgate just doesn't ilke him for some reason. I doubt this is about England.
 
Amir said:
He hasn't made the squad as first choice either... Southgate just doesn't ilke him for some reason. I doubt this is about England.
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Because he can't pass well from the back. Southgate has said this publically, he likes his defenders be comfortable on the ball.

Clearly they've had a falling out as even when he was in good form he never got picked, which is a shame.
 
Dargonk said:
Not sure I agree with this one. While eventually replacing him should be the goal, I would have him around our third choice defender. I'm not sure how Axel has suddenly sprung up a lot of peoples lists, as he has what a few preseason games under his belt for us. While he has looked decent, he still has a long way to proving himself in the PL.

I would have been happier to keep Smalling, and off load some of our other CBs
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It's not that Axel sprung up people's lists all of a sudden, but it's evident that Ole has him third in his pecking order seeing as he's been on the bench despite Smalling being fit (correct me if I'm wrong there..). Plus there's the fact that Smalling barely featured during pre-season whereas Axel did.
 
Beagle said:
Do you mean the Martial foul which was debated for a red card?

On Smalling and VAR, it's a bit of a tongue in cheek comment really. Maybe he won't be so grabby in Italy, but over the years some of his defending on dead balls would surely have resulted in penalties being given. Maybe not all but a fair few of them.
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Not that one, the incident where he was fouled when he was about to shoot.

Also pulling shirt, grabbing players is very common, even more so in Italy. He should be fine, he might even be cleanest defender there.

Anyways hopefully he will have good season in Italy, at least will have more clubs to sign him.
 
JPRouve said:
Not really, the financial reports include more than the turnover line and the people interested in the club's finances look at all the figures and their context.
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A starting CB wage off the bill is going to look good to investors either way, regardless of how in negatively impacts squad depth.
 
Yet another thread where one of our own players, and probably the longest serving at OT of our current squad, gets pillioried by his own fans.

What's wrong with you guys ??

He's leaving us after nine years of being a model pro, for a few seasons a regular NT selection, and the opposite of some of the money grabbing phoneys we seem to have around OT at the moment.

The least we should be doing is to Thank him for nine reasonably good years and wish him Good Luck in Rome.
 
kouroux said:
Our club has gone crazy I think
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Yeah the club was crazy keeping such an average player like Smalling for nearly 10 years! It's not crazy to be shipping out all the deadwood. It's great to see such aggressive action in this respect. You should be over the moon.
 
Full bodied red said:
Yet another thread where one of our own players, and probably the longest serving at OT of our current squad, gets pillioried by his own fans.

What's wrong with you guys ??

He's leaving us after nine years of being a model pro, for a few seasons a regular NT selection, and the opposite of some of the money grabbing phoneys we seem to have around OT at the moment.

The least we should be doing is to Thank him for nine reasonably good years and wish him Good Luck in Rome.
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Perfectly said.
 
Alemar said:
Yes, in that so few players are being shown the door. 5 more need to go - Rojo, Darmian, Matic, Mata, Joel Pereira. Enough is enough
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No Lingard? He is the one who should be on a plane to somewhere, not Smalling.
 
roonster09 said:
Any context? Looks interesting discussion.
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Sure, was always obvious to me that Smalling was the one reserve CB with the right ambition to say "feck that". It's a good decision for all.

Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Have you for a single second thought that Smalling doesn't want to be fourth choice @Amir and that Ole and the management team would be absolute twats to force that upon him?
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Amir said:
I think it's a little early for that. Yes, he's been out of the squad for three matches, but we've had it easy so far - one match a week. There will be a lot more matches soon and Tuanzebe hasn't played one minutes of PL football yet in his career, so we can't be sure about him. Things can change very quickly.

So I doubt Smalling, after so many years, just gave up, three matches into the season. Unless he's even lower in the pecking order than fourth, which would have been absurd.
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Regulus Arcturus Black said:
You doubt that Smalling, who has been first choice for 6 years, is a bit peeved at clearly being relegated to fourth choice at best?

I'm fairly certain Smalling is not at all happy about the situation and it's not about "giving up", if you see yourself as a first team starter and you've been made fourth choice, you look for a move if you're ambitious.

Smalling is doing the right thing here in my opinion if he does complete this move.
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Amir said:
He hasns't reguarly been first choice, and signings like Bailly and Lindelof were supposed to relegate him. I'm sure he's unhappy at being dropped to fourth, but he's fought back before and did well. I doubt he decided to leave three matches into the season rather than try and fight for his place at least until January.
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Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Sure, was always obvious to me that Smalling was the one reserve CB with the right ambition to say "feck that". It's a good decision for all.
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Thanks. I think Ole made it clear he will get very few games, thats why Smalling wanted to move on which is good for both parties.

If he promised that he would get decent number of games and he will rotate the CBs, then maybe he would have stayed.

Anyways good player for us for 9 years. Hopefully he will be huge hit for Roma.
 
Goodbye Chris Smalling, thank you for your service.

You have put up with a lot of shet throughout the years from our club: being called Mike several times by LVG, called out by Mourinho for not recovering from an injury fast enough, left out of the starting lineup on ocasion by Jose because Bailey and Lindelof were supposed to be your replacement, bundled by our fans as “Smalling and Jones” “the clowns” or “chucle brothers” even though your defending is on a much higher level than Jones, and lately being demoted from first team to 5th in line by OGS.

Can’t blame you for finally saying enough is enough and getting on that plane to the eternal city. Good luck in Roma.
 
roonster09 said:
Thanks. I think Ole made it clear he will get very few games, thats why Smalling wanted to move on which is good for both parties.

If he promised that he would get decent number of games and he will rotate the CBs, then maybe he would have stayed.
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He's fourth choice at present so obviously Ole and the management team can't promise any fourth choice that they will get "regular" football which is what Ole said. If Smalling aint assured of regular football, he's off, rightfully so.
 
Ole90+3 said:
A starting CB wage off the bill is going to look good to investors either way, regardless of how in negatively impacts squad depth.
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No it won't because he is still on the book for the next seasons. For investors it's meaningless, the only thing that is significant from their POV is our ability to increase prize and sponsorship money. Getting rid of Smalling and the others is only a good move for the club because the club gets around 95% of the money spared.
 
Btw Smalling scored more league goals than Sanchez and also scored as many goals as Lukaku against top 6 teams.
 
Alemar said:
Lingard is needed for squad rotation, others are simply a waste of space.
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An attacker who doesn’t score and doesn’t assist should not be on our squad at all, by definition he is a complete waste of space. Smalling hasn’t been a waste of space, he’s been our best defender over three or four years. It’s Rojo and Jones who were a waste of space.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
He's fourth choice at present so obviously Ole and the management team can't promise any fourth choice that they will get "regular" football which is what Ole said. If Smalling aint assured of regular football, he's off, rightfully so.
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I think fifth choice. He didn’t even get much play time during preseason, and has been demoted to the stands.
 
What makes you think Smalling is fourth choice??? We know for sure he is outside the first three in the pecking order - but both Rojo and Jones played more in pre-season. Likely Smalling found himself as fifth or even sixth choice
 
damageinc. said:
How many he conceded for his faults? That would be more interesting.
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Not many. He is good CB defensively, his problem was his on the ball ability. Apart from last season, we always had good defensive record.
 
manunited1919 said:
An attacker who doesn’t score and doesn’t assist should not be on our squad at all, by definition he is a complete waste of space. Smalling hasn’t been a waste of space, he’s been our best defender over three or four years. It’s Rojo and Jones who were a waste of space.
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Smalling, Rojo and Jones are all equally shite. If players are not good enough, it is not up to Man Utd to distinguish between the grades of shite, seriously. We need to have a better squad
 
Goodbye sweet price. I won’t really miss you per se...
 
Alemar said:
Smalling, Rojo and Jones are all equally shite. If players are not good enough, it is not up to Man Utd to distinguish between the grades of shite, seriously. We need to have a better squad
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I don't get which part of this people don't understand. Claiming to be the best of a bad bunch is no qualification at all. Like you say, shite is shite. It's not good enough that Smalling was 'less shite' than the other CBs. He may be an upgrade on Jesus for Roma but I wouldn't be surprised if he was warming their bench too come January.
 
Alemar said:
Smalling, Rojo and Jones are all equally shite. If players are not good enough, it is not up to Man Utd to distinguish between the grades of shite, seriously. We need to have a better squad
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So Lingard should be on a plane to Siberia, which was my comment.
 
Full bodied red said:
Yet another thread where one of our own players, and probably the longest serving at OT of our current squad, gets pillioried by his own fans.

What's wrong with you guys ??

He's leaving us after nine years of being a model pro, for a few seasons a regular NT selection, and the opposite of some of the money grabbing phoneys we seem to have around OT at the moment.

The least we should be doing is to Thank him for nine reasonably good years and wish him Good Luck in Rome.
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Off course he's a model pro. He's being performing way bellow his salary, injured and still getting paid most of the time.

Model pro is when you got paid less and you keep working hard, when you put that something extra to keep yourself constantly improving.

I would've kept quiet if no other teams can offer me more than my current employer.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
@Amir.. there you go mate, Smalling did say "feck that" after just three games, exactly as I expected.
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He was excluded during preseason as well. It was pretty obvious Ole didn’t want a defender who isn’t comfortable on the ball when the squad was over here in Australia.
I’d guess he’s 5th choice at best. Jones, Maguire, Lindelöf & Tuanzebe all ahead of him and possibly even Rojo. Not sure how anyone can blame him for wanting to play and not just sitting out the remainder of his contract.
But if you prefer players like Boznich and Bogarde at the club, then it’d be much better for you... but no one else.
 
Playing a year in the Italian league.. living in Rome.. Good for Mikey.
He'll also get a chance to show Lukaku the inside of his pocket.
 
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