The amount of shit people want to lay on Smalling's doorstep even when it's nothing to do with him. It's unreal
I mentioned after the Bournemouth game that Smalling gets the worst treatment out of all our CB's, which is why I defend him more than everyone else, and this is exactly why. I ended up being called biased for it too.
When Jones and Bailly make mistakes people still end up blaming Smalling, even though he cleared up after Bailly and had no effect on the goals conceded the last two games.
Reading through this thread and the other threads about our defenders at least a couple of people have admitted that they have an irrational dislike of Smalling & Jones, I'm sure there's more who won't admit it.
Similarly it looks like Rojo & Bailly especially can do no wrong.
We've got great options and depth at the back, moreso than everyone else in the top 6 - the difference is that they manage to score a lot more goals than we do and that's the problem.
No defence is impassable, so yes we will concede goals.
However there's only been 5 matches in all competitions where we have conceded 2 or more goals, that's a fantastic record given our injuries, fixture congestion and continuous changes to the team.
Of course stats don't show everything but you look at games like Arsenal at home, Bournemouth at home, Everton away, Rostov away, Stoke at home etc - where we conceded last minute, through individual error, or missed dozens of chances to get a 2 goal lead, those are much more concerning.
Those mentioning whether they could see our defenders playing for Bayern or Barcelona or Madrid etc, forget the fact that these teams concede goals at a similar rate than we do. It's just that their final scores are 3-0, 4-1, 5-2 etc so there's no need to talk about their defence. The grass is greener and all that.