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Me neither, and I defend him. Mostly because he and to a lesser extent Jones get scapegoated to an unreasonable level. Smalling is a capable player, wouldn't argue if he was 3rd or 4th choice, but his aerial ability will always make him useful in the PL.
Who knows, maybe he'll read my post and realise that actually Smalling isn't that bad and Jones/Rojo are bloody useless.
Yup, Smalling is probably an 8/10 out and out defender. He'll still make a few errors every now and again although so far this season he didnt until recently.
Great post and I agree
It's weird for you to use that game to beat Smalling, as he came out as one of our best players in that game.
and our best player is fellaini because he is the one who benefited the most with long ball tactic as he is the best in bringing the ball down from awkward height that nobody else could, but our best run of matches last season happens when rojo and jones was paired together, not him
How? We play just as many long balls if not more when he's not playing. Rojo and Jones play the most long balls of our CBs and with the combination of Jones and Bailly we were playing 50+ long balls a game without Smalling on the pitch. We do it with or without Smalling, with or without Fellaini, because we've always got Lukaku there too and to Mourinho thats enough of a reason to do it.
We don't have any CB that is good in long ball either. So, are you saying we should sell all of our CB?
one trick pony , bringing other defender as an excuse for smalling , he is inexcuseable , has been here for 8 years and still having brainfart moment in most games , got his ass saved by de gea brilliance and still doesnt' look like proper footballer
no, cause we don't have unlimited budget like city to replace all our defender in one window, but he is the first one to sell ,
He was ahead of Jones in the pecking order last season you clueless man!
. Smalling was suspended at the start of the season, a suspension carried on from last season. Jones and Bailly did well and Mourinho stuck with them until the inevitable injuries put paid to that. At the start of the season Mourinho even described Smalling as an important player who wouldn't be availableOne trick pony never having any kind of argument to bring to the table as to why Smalling is to blame and ignoring the several arguments using facts that poop all over your nonsensical blame posts.
Yeah sure. Did you watch how good Bailly's passing was against Chelsea at Bridge?
Huh? Our defenders being good or bad on the ball has little to do with how many long balls we play. Top ball playing defenders will play plenty of long balls.
Some will, some wont. But it seems like any will in Mourinho's United. The point is we play just as many long balls from the back regardless of whether Smalling is playing or not, which is what the poster was suggesting - that we only play long balls because Smalling isnt good on the ball.
It is, and it was a bad mistake. I don't want to use that reference that all CB make mistakes but, it's true to some extent, otherwise there won't be a goal scored. Smalling was our top performer on the night along De Gea and Lindelof, and I repeat what i said before, if everybody else played as those 3 we would have won.
Someone should ask these agenda posters which CBs they rate and see if they made any mistakes for goals, chances created or even silly passes.
People are just frustrated, but they bang on the wrong door. We have fans having a go at one of the 3 players that I will say could held his head firm after the game.
Exactly. Team losing control or not able to score means blame CB and post the chances created when he started games. mental gymnastics and this is taking to new level.
In the modern game it isn't just about defending. You need to be able to do much more than that. You need to be a complete footballer. Which Smalling is not.
The difference between Smalling and Rojo is that Smalling passes the ball to De Gea and De Gea hoofs it. Rojo hoofs it himself yet somehow he is gotten this tag that he brings the ball out well. I will give him the fact that he is very comfortable on the ball but he hoofs more than the other cb's
What? When was this? The only time in his entire time here where Rojo was picked ahead of Smalling was in the mid part of last season, a chance he only got after Smalling got injured and he did well enough to hold that place (although once Smalling was back he still played in a significant amount of games). And that's really how it's been so far under Mourinho. When Smalling has had an injury or suspension Mourinho has kept faith with the defenders who were doing the job while Smalling was out (but Smalling continues to play often and it's only during these periods where Mourinho has tried three man central defences). But once a spot opens up Smalling goes straight back into the starting 11 and plays almost every game while his partner gets rotated.
I don't buy that. There are 9 other outfield players, they should be able to carry a relatively poor passer in Smalling. Keeping a clean sheet is half the battle in football.
Fergie's always had quality footballers in central defence. And even the supposedly less skilful partner would have been very comfortable in possession. Vidic gets caricatured as a blood and thunder wrecking machine but he was streets ahead of Smalling on the ball. Feck it, even the likes of Terry and Cahill would be better than him in this regard.
Terry and Cahill were definitely better on the ball.
Yep, Rojo's absence has transformed him into this mythical ball player I wish we had.
Rio and Vidic also had much better players around them and played in a system all the players were comfortable in. Vidic was about the same standard of passer as Smalling IMO.
Quoting myself from upthread but this clip is exactly what im saying.
Good defender, but not very fashionable because a lot of posters value passing ability over defending in their CBs
Trust me I would be very far away from Pep driven crap. I don't buy into Pep at all and I think he's a complete fraud but this is the game today. Every player needs to do almost every job. Its something that Mourinho is especially adamant on.
Depends what you mean by latter stages of the CL. We are in the knockouts already and imo we'll get to the quarters with him in our back line, we are also 2nd in the League (granted I think we'll finish 4th). My beef is with the people who think he's a shit player and needs to be sold. He's not shit, he's defensively sound, i've just been through all of the stats again in more detail this time and Smallings stats are very similar to that of Rojo and Jones. The big difference however is that while Rojo/Jones has missed over 55 games each through injury, Smalling has missed 24. To put that into perspective, Jones and Rojo have missed an entire seasons worth of football in the last 3 seasons. They were both missing for over a third of our games.
Regardless of all that you agree that he's not good enough to be in our starting 11 though? Not good enough to be the focal point of our defence?
Oh for sure. That's what i've always said. He's a great player for us and would be a terrific squad player but we need to find an experienced CB to be partnering Bailly (when he's fit) and when he's not fit partnering Smalling.
I think we should give Lindelof a chance and Blind is more than decent backup and much more versatile. And so is Rojo, but I take the point about his injuries although he has been unfortunate rather than a sick note. His biggest injuries were when he dislocated his shoulder on an awkward fall and when he did his ACL, but Smalling, he has had 7-8 years to prove his worth and he's just not good enough so I think we should cash in. I wouldn't be against cashing in on Rojo, Jones at the same time too but regardless of whether he should be sold or not he just isn't Man UTD quality and can't be starting games for us week in week out, and this is the main point most people are making against a sea of ridiculous comments by the three Smalling amigos
Plenty of people make crazy statements regarding Smalling though. I can understand why they defend him to be fair. If Rojo misses the PL game against Chelsea he'll have missed 38 PL games since the start of 15-16 season. If Jones misses the game he'll be on 37 games missed. That's ultimately the problem at United, we have too many sick note CBs. Blind is a weird one, Jose just doesn't trust him for whatever reason, he and Lindelof has been fit all season so far and yet they've not really played much.I think we should give Lindelof a chance and Blind is more than decent backup and much more versatile. And so is Rojo, but I take the point about his injuries although he has been unfortunate rather than a sick note. His biggest injuries were when he dislocated his shoulder on an awkward fall and when he did his ACL, but Smalling, he has had 7-8 years to prove his worth and he's just not good enough so I think we should cash in. I wouldn't be against cashing in on Rojo, Jones at the same time too but regardless of whether he should be sold or not he just isn't Man UTD quality and can't be starting games for us week in week out, and this is the main point most people are making against a sea of ridiculous comments by the three Smalling amigos
Because neither of them is a good CB. Blind isn't even one. He played DM during his POTY season in Netherlands and as a LB for hi national team.
