Smalling / on loan to Roma 1 year

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Tel074

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What do you do then oh wise oracle because clearly having 7 CB's at the club isn't enough for you
We have 7 CB ? We have 3 that are anywhere near 1st team United players . I'm sure we have 3 or 4 at under 18 level as well sure add them into the mix .
 

Adam-Utd

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Pretty surprised by this, personally think Smalling is 3rd/4th in line and I'd rather shift Jones/Rojo first.

Perhaps it's Smallings decision to leave and play which is fair enough.
 

bosnian_red

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This entirely.

I get we have a ton of centre-backs, but I don't see how getting rid of at least our 3rd best/proven centre back is a good idea for the squad.
Could be that Smalling wanted to be a starter but others were fine with squad roles.
 

Ban

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A bit of respect would be nice.

Chris Smalling played 323 times for Manchester United, the 52nd most in History. He's appeared more for us than players such as
Vidic, Ronaldo, Stapleton, Ince, and Cole. In our current squad, only David De Gea has more appearances with 365.
He's also won 2 Premier Leagues, an FA Cup, 3 Community Shields, a Europa League and he captained us to a League Cup win in 2017.

On a personal level he' was also our Players' Player of the year in 2015-2016, and has been capped by England 31 times
Not gonna have that. Hes a dogshit CB here.
 

charlenefan

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We have 7 CB ? We have 3 that are anywhere near 1st team United players . I'm sure we have 3 or 4 at under 18 level as well sure add them into the mix .
Ok so Smalling is considered good enough for the 1st team but Bailly, Rojo, Jones aren't? Piss off. They're all the much of a muchness in terms of ability. Is Smalling the best of the lot? Possibly. Is it worth the hysteria that he's leaving? No
 

Skills

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Pretty surprised by this, personally think Smalling is 3rd/4th in line and I'd rather shift Jones/Rojo first.

Perhaps it's Smallings decision to leave and play which is fair enough.
Probably a bit of both. The squad was bloated as it was and we added 2 CBs to the first team squad this summer (Maguire and Axel). Something had to give.
 

fps

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Utd fans seem to have a real problem with understanding managers that defend and talk up their players in public.

Jose lays in to Pogba and Shaw in a press conference: “scumbag, disgusting behaviour hanging out players out to dry like that, get him out the club”

Zidane says hopefully Bale will be gone from Real Madrid asap: “bald cnut, hope he fails, disgusting behaviour to treat a player like that”

Ole remains polite and talks up his players in public regarding Lingard, Sanchez, Smalling: “why doesn’t he say Lingard is shit, why doesn’t he say Smalling is finished and will never play again, why doesn’t he say Sanchez is a flop.”

Jesus fecking christ.
Yep. They don't understand subtext, when the managers talk, these people seem to think they're part of a club meeting or something, that they're getting their real thoughts. It's a bit sad....
 

romufc

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Pretty surprised by this, personally think Smalling is 3rd/4th in line and I'd rather shift Jones/Rojo first.

Perhaps it's Smallings decision to leave and play which is fair enough.
Maybe because there was no offers for Jones or Rojo.

If you watched any of the Pre season games as well, you would know that Rojo and Jones are ahead of Smalling in Ole's pecking order.
 

Stubble

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Have to hope Tuanzebe comes good as I don't like our other backup CB options that much (plus most of them will be on the treatment table). Prob a good move for the future but can't help feeling these sales and loans are seriously weakening the backup squad short term.
 

dev1l

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If he have a good season at Roma, there might be some good offers for him next Summer
 

Annihilate Now!

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Could be that Smalling wanted to be a starter but others were fine with squad roles.
Could be, but then that's never seemed to bother Smalling in the past? he's always found a way to get himself into the first team - generally through not being injured and actually being able to defend more competently then Jones/Rojo/Bailly.

Hopefully Tuanzebe is ready for the step-up... if he is then this shouldn't be too big an issue (Assuming that Jones is actually fit whenever he's needed to be our 4th choice).... I just never want to see Rojo play as a CB for us again.
 

11101

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A bit of respect would be nice.

Chris Smalling played 323 times for Manchester United, the 52nd most in History. He's appeared more for us than players such as
Vidic, Ronaldo, Stapleton, Ince, and Cole. In our current squad, only David De Gea has more appearances with 365.
He's also won 2 Premier Leagues, an FA Cup, 3 Community Shields, a Europa League and he captained us to a League Cup win in 2017.

On a personal level he' was also our Players' Player of the year in 2015-2016, and has been capped by England 31 times
Arguably more so than any other player, he embodies the dropping of standards at this club since SAF retired. He was never good enough and has racked up so many games here not through ability or beating out his competition, but through our stream of failed purchases in an attempt to replace him.
 

Sandikan

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I would prefer JonesBailey to go than Smalling. Smalling is either our 2nd or 3rd best centreback behind slab head.

We've arguably got 5 worse centre backs. Madness.
Totally this.
Not sure how it seems accepted lindelof is the starter and tuanzebe, totally untried at this level are ahead of him.
Oh well. Let's see how it pans out.
Lindelof gave us a taster of his weakness v palace for their first goal.
 

dileno

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An injury to any of Maguire and Lindelöf leaves us with somewhat unproven Tuanzebe, often injured Jones, mostly injured Bailly and red card Rojo for the CB spots. I had hoped Smalling would start in cup games and as back up cover.
 

NinjaFletch

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I feel the same but it's probably true that Smalling has the value of actually being a decent player.

Nobody but the extremely desperate would take Jones, Rojo and Darmian. Plus their wages are too high.
Sure, but by the same token they don't offer use depth, either.
 

ayushreddevil9

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We had to get rid at some time. Folks complain when we keep average players, folks complain when we sell them.

We can only sell them when there is demand. Nobody actually wants Jones, Rojo and Darmian probably otherwise there would be no reason to keep them! Hoping there's no injury crisis.
 

Revaulx

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Whereas Smalling maybe less injury prone than Jones, he would be a massive VAR liability in the box with his tendency to use his hands / grapple every player within reach. Maybe its a tactical release to avoid penalties & free kicks, never mind his wages and the fact he probably wants more first team football.
Smalling has played plenty of games under VAR and I don’t recall him yet having been penalised as a result.
 

Woodzy

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Probably others that should go before him but meh, he needs to go either way.

Only thing that I would say is that since it’s a loan with no option to buy then him leaving instead of some of the other CB’s does have a bigger impact.

There are clearly concerns from the top over the wage bill though. We have cleared a huge chunk even if only on temporary basis. No complaints with it as long as the intentions are for future investment (which they are probably not)
 

Amar__

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So we got rid of our only injury free defender ahead of Bailly, Jones, Rojo, even though he is also far better player than any of them. Well at least some will be hapoy now.
 

roonster09

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This entirely.

I get we have a ton of centre-backs, but I don't see how getting rid of at least our 3rd best/proven centre back is a good idea for the squad.
Assuming Tuanzebe is the third choice CB now, so everyone is up for sale. For the players we get offers, they will be offloaded. Doubt anyone is going to offer a deal for Jones.

We shouldn't hold back just because there are 2 other worse CBs. Maybe they are all considered as not needed players.
 

RedNed77

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I’m not happy about this tbf. He’s definitely our third best CB, possibly second ahead of Victor. I don’t buy that Rojo is preferred over him due to friendly appearances in the summer, otherwise we wouldn’t have been considering flogging him to Everton. Jones and Bailly are permacrocks.

Anybody saying Tuanzebe is ready for the step up needs to look at Greenwood’s appearances so far, the kids are just not ready yet.

We’ve now probably weakened our attack, midfield and defence this summer and with DDG not being his old self anymore, it’s worrying.
 

Revaulx

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Do Roma play a high line? Despite his much-derided lack of ball skills he always seemed more comfortable playing in one under LvG than in an Jose/Ole deep defence.
 

Alemar

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So we got rid of our only injury free defender ahead of Bailly, Jones, Rojo, even though he is also far better player than any of them. Well at least some will be hapoy now.
Why do people care so much about old players who don’t even make the bench? If he doesn’t make the bench now, he is more or less irrelevant - in this regard it doesn’t matter whether he is or is not marginally better than the others.

Smalling, Rojo and Jones - does it really matter who of them stays if they ain’t gonna play? By the time they might be needed, we will have Bailly and Fosu-Mensah back
 

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If there was a list of 10 things to do then this is about the 9th or 10th thing on that list. On one hand theres other things to do first but on the other it has to be done at some stage. Mixed feelings about this one.
 

Alabaster Codify7

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Weird.
Good chance Bailly and Jones will be out injured at the same time, meaning any injury to the first choice CBs and it's Axel and some other youngster playing every game. No pressure there, then - like every other area of the pitch. No proper depth.

Anyway at least we're doing something about players Ole doesn't want. Quite why Smalling is not preferred to Jones baffles me, though. Maybe it's just a case of teams actually having a vague interest in Smalling unlike Jones, nobody seems interested at all in him. Understandable.

Good luck to Chris, nice chap it seems and a tidy CB.
 

Raw

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Anybody saying Tuanzebe is ready for the step up needs to look at Greenwood’s appearances so far, the kids are just not ready yet
Tuanzebe is a few years more developed than Greenwood. He was a first choice CB at Villa for a season and has already appeared several times for United's first team.
 
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