Doens't mean I think he is great, I don't rate any of our CBs, Smalling is the best of a bad bunch though
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The managers for both club and country aren't exactly the most tactically adept though.
They seem to be using ball playing CB's that dont utilise passing or create anything whilst being so much worse in defence.
How this lad hasnt been given an opportunity under Ole is baffling. All of the other shower of shite have played, Jones, Rojo, Lindelof. Maguire is a bang average slow oaf
Defensively I don't think it's the worst shout myself.
I agree he is our best CB always was. Don't forget he was played with Young and Lindelöf his last season with us. That in it self wouldn't help anyone excel.
Technically correct, but Smalling seemed to be at the very bottom of the pecking order. During the preseason last season he got the least amount of minutes out of all of our fit central defenders. Obviously Maguire and Lindelof were our main two and Tuanzebe was next in line. I'm pretty sure both Rojo and Jones also got more gametime during that preseason (I know one of them definitely did, can't remember if they were both there or if one was injured). And most likely Bailly would also have been ahead once he got fit. So Smalling seemed to be 7th in the pecking order out of our 7 defenders and understandably asked to leave.
Ole obviously put a huge importance on ball playing ability. Far more importance than I personally agree with (it's important but not enough to drop Smalling behind the rest of the mob considering how much better he is at every other aspect of being a defender), but he's the manager and he'll succeed or fail based on his decisions.
I think if he's here and partnering Maguire, we will see an improvement on the defence. He can be a short term solution.
Our yearly mantra.
Ole kinda took the same line of self protectiveness as Southgate, in a idealist fashion after being pragmatic to get the results needed to get the job. In retrospect, a lot of people would have continued to compare Ole to Mourinho if Smalling kept playing I think. You don't see people complaining about us not playing out from the back very well, at least not as frequently as before when Smalling would get most of that blame, despite that we all know the improvements made in that area could well have been done with or without Smalling. It's not as if it is relevant to any longterm building or anything, you can play the same way with Smalling and push the kids in when they are ready, just like we seem to be doing with Lindelof.
Obviously I would like a perfect Lindelof replacement but Mengi needs time it's unfair to expect too much, while Tuanzebe is still a risk. I think it's time for Ole to stop his idealistic view on CB's, stop disregarding quality defending and be a bit smarter to get us through this season. It's clear for anyone to see that our best defender post SAF, combined with Maguire and a new class RB in AWB would be our strongest and most consistent lineup. I feel what we've lacked is the strength to play aggressive. It's good to be calm but our whole team is too calm sometimes, too controlled.. we need to be able to push up, win some duels and dominate. Every time we lose a duel, we defend deep with our whole team and then build out slowly from the back facing 11 men. We need more penetration and aggressiveness, it's what made it so exiting watching us play under Ole.
Just Rojo, Bailly, Lindelof, and Maguire, bought for the CB positions since SAF left, with four other CB's leaving within 2 years of him retiring as well, we've had no youth players really coming through, and of the signings we've made, one is terrible, one too injured to properly judge, and the other two don't really look too promising playing together, it's no wonder we always seem to need to buy one every year., because we do.
...couldn’t agree with this more!!! Would love Ole to swallow his pride on Smalling and pick him next to Harry...it could be the making of that defence short term and get us playing. You just need to go back to basics sometimes.
It seems pigheaded or Ole not to give Smalling a go in there.
Linderhoff has been making these mistakes since the start of last season and is not improving.
However he could be afraid of him picking up an injury and then theres no chance of him being sold.
Linderhoff has been making these mistakes since the start of last season and is not improving.
However he could be afraid of him picking up an injury and then theres no chance of him being sold.
I'm a big critic of Chris Smalling. I think he's got flaws in his game that we need a major upgrade on. But he's so much better than Lindelof and not worlds apart from Maguire. In this Man United setup, he's actually quite a viable option. The way we defended the other day was embarrassingly glaring. We could do worse than playing him next week.
Since when does pro footballers not named Bale or Özil prefer to sit on the bench rather than playing every week? Smalling has played regularly for most of his career so choosing to not sit on the bench for United and instead going to live in Rome and playing every week isn't an integrity move, it's just common sense and the vast majority of footballers would do the same.
he played under a Van Gaal passing system which is more sophisticated than Ole's idea of playing from the back. His partnership with Blind was one of the best we have had post Fergie. Do I feel he is good enough longterm? nope. But he is and will compliment Maguire better than Lindelof. we are better off selling Lindelof and promoting Harry as they may cover each others weaknesses better. Smalling can be the charging bull winning headers, one on one battles and pace. Harry the calm presence. got nothing to lose this season by playing him until we get someone better
No. He was told he was not going to be used because Lindelof would be starting and Tuanzabe would get the push into the team and have chances. So he'd have just a small amount of games.
For the past like 5 years before last season Smalling had to fight for his place in the team as we brought in new CB after new CB that he outperformed.
They're both fine on the ball. Roma were more productive going forward than we were with our "ball playing CBs"
And Blind and Maguire is not too different in their approach to play either.
They are more on the ball so will usually come out forward, they aren't exactly the fastest defensive players in the league so aim to be proactive as a defender more so than reactive leaving then coming out of the defensive lines further than trying to run back and defend all the time if the opposition beats them.
That's why Smalling & Maguire will work because one plays differently to the other to create a strong central partnership. It's just been such a standard in football like how Rio & Vidic played in two opposite ways. The need for this 2 ball playing CB'S is valuable but overrated as long as you have one.
It's just kind of plain obvious that Ole & Southgate ditched Smalling to show that they follow 'a philosophy' and did it by only choosing ball playing CB's. Alot of the first teamers they choose aren't the best passers either so it's just questionable.
I would like to see Smalling-Maguire partnership but can't see this happening and I understand why the club wants to move him on. He's on his 30is and if they can sell him for 20m then obviously they will take it because the point is they want to move on lot of our centre back to buy a new one for the rebuilding project.
Roma also had a poor defensive record. Would you say he was responsible for that too?
I would say he was their best defender and they had a good record in the first half of the season (or at least better than ours) but then like many teams including Leicester, it went wrong in the 2nd half of the season and their results in general were not good and they conceded too many goals. But its clear that he didnt stop them being a very good attacking team so that myth is out of the window
This "Ball playing ability" that is so often spoken of that Lindelof apparently has and Smalling doesn't, if we look over the fact I don't actually think Lindelof displays these qualities to a consistent level, let's pretend he does for the sake of this argument. Does it outweigh Smalling superior ability/ tackling ability etc? Genuinely think it's ludicrous
This myth just won't die. Under LVG we played with a back 6. We had the back four with two midfielders covering them at all times. Smalling's job was entirely defensive, collecting whatever got past the midfield screen and passing the ball to Blind or a deep midfielder, who were then expected to play a 40 yard ball through the lines to the forwards. It didn't work. We had a massive gap between the back 6 and the front 4, and as a result we racked up our worst goal tally in over 30 years. The whole team was set up to cover our defensive weaknesses, and it did a very good job of it, but we don't ever want to go down that road again.
That's speculation, they could have scored more with a better ball playing defender, who knows. The point is that its contradictory to say that Roma's attacking performance reflects well on his ball playing, while also saying their poor defensive performance doesn't reflect badly on him as a defender.
1001% it does - unfortunately when it comes to the person that matters - Ole. I think it's big mistake because you can get away with it if you are utterly dominant as a team but, when you are in our position, where we are still building towards that, then practicality has to take play a big factor into the decision. Ole, like Southgate though are too married to their philosophy even though they've won nothing with it.
All that matters is Lindelof would get smashed at Roma doing worse than Smalling.
His ball playing abilities is no significant boost to the team but his defensive ability would hold the team back.
LVG played Fellaini not because he was the best passer of the ball but was still one of the better or even only centre midfielders we had at the club so had to utilise him for the team.
Playing two ball playing CB'S is not enough to get all the rewards teams like Pep, Klopp or whoever in the world uses it without the right tactics, formation and strategies for the rest of the team to benefit from it. All we see is balls being spread from one CB to another something that Smalling proved he could do with LVG.
@Shimo says it perfectly we need practicality in our decisions. When we have the right ball playing CB capable of taking over Smalling that's when he should have been dropped or replaced. That's what happened with Fellaini - got sent soon as the manager in control realised we had better options than him and he was no longer even filling a gap in our squad.
Right now for many of us - Smalling can cover a gap better than Lindelof can, better than jones can, better than Bailly ever has or Rojo.
The funny thing is neither England Nor Man utd play it out well from the back. Its slow, aimless and non penetrative.
we changed formation basically every week under Van Gaal and I saw with my own eyes, Mike making surging runs with the ball out of defence. In 2016, Smalling and Blind were the only CB who played over 30 league games. In 2015 We beat Liverpool 2-1 at Anfield and Herrera, Fellaini and Mata were out midfielders with Smalling and Jones CB. Blind was at LB. That season we had the 3rd best defence in the league and did not have 2 holding midfielders at all that season. Only conceded 2 more than in 2016. When Shaw started in 2016 he was getting forward as was Borthwick Jackson. I don't know where the number 6 came from. In terms of holding midfield players, Carrick only started 22 league games, similar to Schneirderlin and Bastian barely even played. Who were the holding players mostly that year?
Why bring Lindelof into this? He's not good enough either. The sooner we get rid of the pair of them the better.
But I'm not am I- I'm bringing all of the CB'S in the squad and Smalling has proven to be better than every single one.
I dont see why we should be selling Smalling because he cant play a pass across the field when none of our CB'S in the squad can and at the same time not a single one can defend better than him or are regularly even fit enough to try.
It's like we have Upamecano or whoever everyone else wants at the club already but we dont. We can look at all the players in the world at awe but we must balance the books at what's at our disposal aswell - that's not been done with our CB'S.
Let's say we play him, I think it's best if his position is LCB.
Shaw -- Smalling -- Maguire -- AWB
Maguire and Shaw will cover his ball-playing ability, while on the plus side Maguire could even cover AWB's aerial ability and positioning lapses (from better communication than with Lindelof) with AWB covering Mag's 1on1 ability. Lindelof and AWB is not a good combo, I don't think they communicate enough. Defensive units have to communicate with one another.
Shaw -- Smalling -- Maguire -- AWB
Maguire and Shaw will cover his ball-playing ability, while on the plus side Maguire could even cover AWB's aerial ability and positioning lapses (from better communication than with Lindelof) with AWB covering Mag's 1on1 ability. Lindelof and AWB is not a good combo, I don't think they communicate enough. Defensive units have to communicate with one another.
I am not twerking for Smalling because he is simply not the long term answer but I feel that Lindelof and Maguire will continue to not best compliment each other as they are a bit weak at times so maybe we need a bit of a brute in there for now. Its not as if they show deft touches and pick out amazing passes etc. We can sell Smalling at the end of this season but I would move Lindelof off now because we can get a decent fee and he certainly is never going to be the level needed to challenge. then we go again next year.
A back 3 of
I really hate that Jose sold Blind.
Maguire - Smalling- Blind
Would have something I'd really have enjoyed to watch when we play that formation. Reminds me of some of the old italian back 3's that had great ball playing abilities. I'd reckon it would have been heavily balanced for us to play a proper attacking team in front of them and making crisp penetrative passes.
I really hate that Jose sold Blind.
The funny thing is Smalling in his 2 seasons under LVG had more accurate long passes than Lindelof in any season of his career, and I remember him making many good runs out of defense like @Ekeke stated. Of course, under Mourinho that changed significantly and I think he lost some of the good stuff he learned under LVG. I always thought it was stupid talk when Mourinho suggested he needed a year to make our players forget what they learned under LVG but people here lapped it up.
So you're saying Roma have better attacking players than we do
They did better going forward and Smalling was in the team, with worse playersIn 2015/16 Carrick played 24 games in defensive midfield, Schneiderlin played 25, and Schweinstieger did 18 between CM and DM. Fellaini also had a handful of games there. LVG occasionally set us up with Carrick as a single sitting midfielder but usually we had two and it made us defensively solid but awful at moving the ball forward.
Schneiderlin didnt sit for us as a DM, he played a normal CM role. Carrick is also more offensive than most DMs
No idea what you're talking about, I made no such suggestion.So you're saying Roma have better attacking players than we do
I hope he doesn't play him tonight with the B team. Our second team is so bad he wont have a chance to shine. he deserves a chance in the first team.
This is the best team we can put out at the moment and he should play the next game in the PL.
De Gea
AWB
Smalling
Maguire
Shaw
Van De Beek/ Matic/ Fred/ Mctominay (depending on the opponent)
Pogba
Bruno
Greenwood
Matial
Rashford
This is the best team we can put out at the moment and he should play the next game in the PL.
De Gea
AWB
Smalling
Maguire
Shaw
Van De Beek/ Matic/ Fred/ Mctominay (depending on the opponent)
Pogba
Bruno
Greenwood
Matial
Rashford
How else do you explain Roma scoring plenty more goals than United, but with Smalling in defense - whereas United scored a bunch less with ball playing CBs?
The only solution is "Well, Roma's attacking players are better so it didnt matter that Smalling was holding them back compared to Lindelof and Maguire".
As I said myth gone, if they can do it we can do it because our attacking players are better.
In 2015/16 he did. It was hoped he could be our number 6.
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