Maybe not often from an absolute sense, but from a relative sense I'd say it's pretty often. I generally don't like to refer to them as you can make a high/lowlights compilation for any player, but look at this (some clips are harsh though):
Besides those, it's the little things that I'd also say are important. Slight miscontrols of switches of play or fumbles from passes give time for the opposition to reorganise. Small margins like that can make a difference. Pass accuracy isn't really a good barometer either. Smalling had pretty good-looking pass accuracy throughout his time here.
As a 30+ year old man that's just started doing keepy ups, for sure. As a 30+ year old man that's been doing keepy ups since he was 10? Doubt it. Progression isn't limitless. Or are you suggesting the only thing separating other players from Messi (on a technical level) for example is practice? Everyone has natural limits. No matter how much Lingard practises his passing, he'll never pass like Pirlo. No matter how much Lukaku practises dribbling, he'll never dribble like Ronaldinho. It's the concept of diminishing returns. When I say never, I suppose I should say "not in a reasonable timeframe".
I asked somebody else this — if technical improvements were so straightforward, why didn't Smalling address this at some point in the 10 years he was here when that was his main criticism?
I hate those videos because they span too long a period. You could probably make one of Ronaldo being shit at finishing.
He can improve - he won’t become Cafu overnight - but he just needs to be a bit more consistent. I still see a good player in him. Issue tonight wasn’t even his touch to be honest, a lot of players wouldn’t have taken that pass perfectly in their stride, it was the red card.
Re Smalling he did improve slightly as I recall, when he first played for us he was atrocious but to be honest AWB looks like Riquelme compared to him.
I do actually believe it all comes down to how much someone practices something, Messi and Ronaldo weren’t born with the ability to play football they just played it more, worked harder and more effectively than everyone else. Again, at professional level you can’t catch up (Lukaku couldn’t suddenly become a silky dribbler as it’s too late) but AWB isn’t anywhere near as bad as people make out and so even if he just improves everything by a few % he’ll be great for us
Today is irrelevant really. It just brings up an opportunity to talk about him. Shaw created a lot more last season (more than double the key passes) and is an all round far better player. Unless your point is that AWB is as good as shaw? Just watching the matches you can see Shaw is miles better. I hope we improve on him asap.
No but is he better than Shaw was at 23? Immediate reaction is no but then think of how poor Shaw was defensively in many games and how many people wanted him sold. Different problems but there is a solution. Shaw really didn’t hit elite levels until last season so AWB has 2 full seasons to get to that point. There’s still hope for him.