if he thought he could go off he would have.
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 45
- Clean sheets
- 20
- Goals
- 4
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 4
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
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If that's the case it is really disappointing. You've just watched City come to OT and rub your nose in it as they confidently stride across the horizon out of sight in the title race. Confetti everywhere.
The only chance United has is to go on a run of wins, stay in touch until City slip up and hope the pressure starts to tell.
But instead, with just 90 seconds left on the clock, one goal ahead and all 3 subs used, a win is crucial. And as a player his attitude is "I'd go off if I could"? That is a terrible mentality and if that was his attitude it is incredibly worrying.
I found it staggering how quickly the winning mentality left the club post Fergie and if Jose can't get it back I don't know who can.
So there is some possible negative effects in creating a culture where players are expected to play through injury.
Awesome, so instead he gets blamed for playing through pain and doing more damage to himself because he ended up the closest player to the player who scored, despite there being 2 other CBs who had replaced him, and the left back not tracking his man and the best goalkeeper in the world not coming for a ball close to his goal.
And now our lovely fans want to blame the injured party who was criticized last year because he didnt play whilst injured, for playing injured and not doing it as well as they'd like.
Perhaps for once our fans can support our player and appreciate the effort and risk he took to his personal condition and actually look at the bigger picture and all the mistakes around him? No, didnt think so. Merry bloody christmas.
Maybe others are blaming him for that. My only issue with him is why (after playing injured for 5-10 minutes) he sat down on the pitch with just 90 seconds left and was still ok to come straight back on. I just cannot understand why he did that.
You were the one who suggested he wanted to go off and would have if he could. That's a far bigger criticism than anything I have said.
Of course he would have wanted to go off and not further damage himself and be out for longer if he could do that and the team wouldnt suffer and the manager wouldnt look down on him. Thats called taking care of yourself and looking at a bigger picture than just 1 game or 3 points. He could have made the injury worse and been out for the rest of the season. Maybe even longer.
I remember when Rafael tried to play on with injury and made it worse. Lots of people condemned him for being a young player who didnt look at the bigger picture. I'm sure by now Smalling knows that if you're really injured and struggling you need to get off the pitch so that you can get back on it as soon as possible and only someone naive would expect otherwise.
He didnt though! He gutted it out, and is getting criticised for doing so. For some reason.
He's started 22 (23?) games in a row, hasn't he? I think Mourinho trusts him more than any of our other defenders. He's also captained the side. Lets get this straight, Mourinho has stated previously that he wants his players to play through pain - that's a little different from playing through an injury that is literally preventing you from moving like a human. I like Smalling but he easily could have said that he cannot play on. Whoever made the call, the medical team, Mourinho or Chris himself is stupid. If it was all three, then they're all stupid.
Nobody would lambaste Smalling for going off. In fact, most would have criticised Mourinho for subbing Mkhi on. The key was that, had he gone off, it would have been 10v10 anyway so it was hardly putting us at a disadvantage, especially with there only being 2 minutes left.
The excuses just keep gettint more and more pathetic.
Firstly no one told him to play through pain, if he wasn’t in a condition to do his job properly he could have stayed out of the game especially since Leicester were down to 10 anyway. Instead he tried to be a hero and cost us 2 points.
Secondly he was closest to the ball because that was his zone, You don’t see two three players knowingly running towards the ball when a cross comes in because they rely on the person in that area to deal with it. If he wasn’t on the pitch or in his position someone else would have covered it. You can try and excuse it but it’s still doesn’t change the fact it cost us 2 points.
Thirdly everybody is heading out while he is strolling back into position as the cross is coming in, Young steps out to try and play Maguire offside while Smalling falls back to play him onside. Total lack of awareness. Just before the cross you can see Young is also ducking to see where the ball is as there’s a line of players and referee blocking his view. Once the ball is in the air he starts to move back but Maguire has the run on him being played onside by Smalling who is about a 2-3 yards away from Young. This is when he stops as he has no real chance to catch Maguire and Smalling has seemigly got it covered.
Fourthly De Gea is half way between his goal line and 6 yard box. He sees the ball only when it is in the air and at this point everyone is running back towards the goal. Not only would he run the risk of getting clattered if he try and run for the ball not knowing where it’s going at this point, but there’s not even 2 seconds between the time where he sees it and Maguire hits it so you can’t really expect him to react instantaneously while doing a 4 yard dash at the same time. Maybe he should have done better with positioning to try and save the shot but it was Smallings fault for letting Maguire in with a whimper of an effort to stop him or the ball. The excuse that he couldn’t do it because he was injured doesn’t change the fact that it is what cost us 2 points.
There is a case to be made about our tactics and what not else but that doesn’t change the fact that the reason why that goal went in was Chris fecking Smalling.
Look at seconds 12-16 on this goal video for reference to my points above.
Merry Christmas to you too!
Simply because he's Smalling, him and Jesse take an awful lot of criticism off our fans. Has it been Bailly, he'd have not gotten anywhere near as much crap.
Possibly because he was concerned that exactly what happened would happen, that a teammate would not understand the extent of the injury and expect him to do something he was physically not capable of. You could see Jones pushing him to go down/go off simply so they could properly organize.
If he stays on and they still score he would be criticized from the angle of not going down and allowing the team to organize. Simply a no win situation for Smalling given his standing with the fans. De Gea should be coming off his line for that ball by the way, passive goalkeeping, the one issue with his game. Looking at that video that Grib posted, the ball is landing 4 yards out from a ball that comes in from distance. Keeper has to come.
And in terms of costing us 2 points, look at our attackers who should have scored 5 or 6 on the break against a crap side.
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It's like people have been waiting since the Chelsea game last season for any chance to criticise Smalling. They've jumped the gun too early with this one though.
At the end of the day Mouriniho should of subbed him . He was the one who criticized players for not playing when they are injured . So that is now on players minds. It's a catch22 situation that he created.
I kind of agree with that. When I was watching Smalling limping around the field with a grimace on the face, I actually cringed and thought how ridiculous the situation was, because it was so obvious the player could not even run or jump properly, making the defense a total shambles.
Smalling is 28. He is not a young player any more. By now, he should know when he is fit to play or not. It was his judgement that he can come back in, nobody can force an injured player to play if he doesn't want to. He is responsible for what happened. He is responsible for the goal. We should not crucify him for his poor judgement. But there is no point in finding meaningless excuses either: it was his decision and it was the wrong decision.
We had already used all 3 subs.
No way de Gea at fault for that goal. Even a GK like Ederson wouldn't go for the ball in that situation.
It was his decision for Young not to track his man and De Gea to not come for a cross close to his goal?
Maguire makes contact with the ball at knee height 3 yards from De Gea's goal, literally half way into his 6 yard box. Any goalkeeper should come for it and would be faulted for it if they didnt.
Exactly this.
It's funny the length some people travel to find reason for bashing Smalling.
No way any fan should blame Smalling for that goal. It was the whole team to blame. The front players should have kept possession, take the ball to the corner flag. The players around Smalling should know to provide cover. Young or another midfielder could have followed Maguire. De Gea could have reacted quicker. Etc etc etc.
He's not playing Maguire on, Phil Jones is
The video evidence suggest otherwise even though I was just talking about Young and Smalling, but you can also see that everyone is getting out as the ball goes to Albrighton including Jones. Smalling meanwhile is slowly strolling back for no reason whatsoever.
Furthermore just before the ball goes to Albrighton, Pogba is looking to position himself. He looks back and sees Smalling is there so he leaves that area to him and stays between him and Jones.
Pogba would have easily dealt with it if Snalling just stayed out of the way. Young and De Gea could have made different decisions if he wasn’t there too.
We won’t know any of these because Smalling fecked it up for everyone on a day that all the chasers dropped points while City steamrolled ahead.
It’s funny the lengths some people will travel to find an excuse for Smalling.
Mate, it’s Christmas.
Smalling has been our most consistent defender for the past 2 and a half months you’ve been absent in this thread the whole time.
Now, your agenda posting returns, and you seemingly want to reply to any positive comment about him.
Go spend time with your family. The game is over.
Let it go. He played with an injury and did all he could for the team. It didn't work out.
So, is he still injured? I suppose he won't play tomorrow?
So, is he still injured? I suppose he won't play tomorrow?
That still shows that four of them are playing Maguire onside. Pogba is also miles away from Maguire and in no position to do anything about the goal.
That goal is obviously not Smalling’s fault, who actually played very well throughout the match. The rest of the defence should not have been leaving Maguire for a player who was literally just limping back onto the pitch.
I doubt he will play for a few weeks. He could hardly run so he’s got no chance of playing.
Jose not long ago pretty much publicly called him a wimp for not playing with a broken toe. What would you do?
Exactly. Yes Smalling is deepest but Maguire is onside regardless. He timed his run.
Something nobody has even mentioned yet is how high the ball is over Smalling. I think a completely fit Chris Smalling could just about brush the ball if he leaped and touch it for a corner. Maybe. But its certainly not something comfortable to deal with even if he was completely fit. And to be honest I bet if Smalling got a slight touch and prevented it from going to Maguire, the first thing hed do is shout at De Gea and Young for their mistakes.
You ramble too much. Absent Smalling Phil Jones is the furthest back and even Pogba and Young keep Maguire onside.
DDG’s mistake all the way. I cannot see how this is further debated.
Not very far. Anyone who has any idea what they're talking about when it comes to defending can see that while he did end up the closest to the player who scored, its because 2 other teammates didnt do their jobs and made mistakes.
Absent Smalling and Young likely runs with Maguire, Pogba likely takes Smallings position and De Gea likely goes for the ball. Why? Because taking Smalling out of the equation means we others would have to be more alert ti the danger in that area so we likely wouldn’t concede that goal. He came on the pitch took that position and other team members wrongly relied on him to deal with it in that area and it cost us 2 points.
@Ekeke I won’t repeat myself on who’s mistake it is and why, if you read above you can see that your excuses have already been “debunked”.
So much guess work and hypotheticals.
Your premise that Smalling was keeping Maguire onside is patently false, I'm not interested in the rest of your conjecture
Depends if DDG called it. He should have done I agree, but if he didn't Smalling and the others should keep playing as if he wasn't going to.
And like I said upthread, none of this makes a difference to the fact Smalling had no idea Maguire was there.
My problem with that goal is how with 11 men Vs 10 we are all in the box and trying to defend for our lives. You know why Herrera is not able to close down Albrighton from crossing? Cuz he was just in the box trying to defend the previous ball and couldn't run out in time. That's what happens when everybody is inside your own box trying to defend.
We've seen it enough times during SAF's time where opposing teams were defending with all men in the box desperately only for the ball to be deflected or fall to one of us in the box.
That's where the whole thing is on Jose. We should be better able to control the game without panicking into defending in our box. Look at how city kept the ball against us at our home. 11 Vs 11 against a desperate man united team at old Trafford. While I don't expect us to be as good as that, we sure as hell should be better than what we saw.
We've seen it enough times during SAF's time where opposing teams were defending with all men in the box desperately only for the ball to be deflected or fall to one of us in the box.
That's where the whole thing is on Jose. We should be better able to control the game without panicking into defending in our box. Look at how city kept the ball against us at our home. 11 Vs 11 against a desperate man united team at old Trafford. While I don't expect us to be as good as that, we sure as hell should be better than what we saw.
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