Smalling and Bli... oh
Smalling and a new CB.
Smalling and a new CB.
Best CB pairing
- Thread starter SAred
- Start date
100% truth.
Best option is to get rid of bailly in January, recall axel or pay big money for a cB. Get rid of smalling and lindelof in the summer, buy two cbs. No one wants jones, because he’s damaged goods. Just run down his contract the summer after. Rojo will find a suitor this summer or the summer once his fee reduced. Everyone should be gone in the next 6-18 months.
New manager shouldn’t get any garbage players with bad habits to deal with.
So sell 4 CBs and keep Jones who can never stay fit??
Seemed to work out yesterday, although Newcastle had shifted into a defensive mode.
I agree that this pairing should be tried. Bailley is completely off form, Lindeloff has not shown enough improvement, while Jones and Rojo are sick notes. Smalling is our best performing CB and playing with an experienced star who can pass the ball, may be a good partnership.
As has been highlighted across multiple , Matic has been poor this season. I think it's down to fatigue and there were signs last season of his performances dropping when played week in week out in a physically demanding position. CB could give him a new lease of life and address one of our problem areas that failed to be fixed in the summer.
Having a CB confident of playing the ball, will greatly increase our attacking play. I'm sick of players flapping under the press or going for the sideways ball (which slows our attack)
At this point going off of how slow and poor he has been in midfield I’d rather make Matic be Smalling partner. As soon as we started attacking and moved Smalling to the right all of a sudden the defence sort of changed to looking competent compared to what it was like with Bailly and McTominay.
Yeah, for example Duffy-Dunk are better than Smalling-Bailly
Tarkowski-Mee are better than Lindelof-Jones
But the whole squad is incredible overrated, and the statistics confirm this.
Agreed.
He has pretty much tried everything else with little sign of improvement. Itwas a big gamble to try McTominay paired with Balliy who is hopelessly lacking confidence and form.
Smalling is the least worst but urgently needs a reliable partner.
It is not possible to overstate how much the defence is affecting overall team performance.
I don’t really agree with the last statement, that’s not the sole reason and it’s more just down to the tactics and poor decisions made by the manager but the defence certainly doesn’t help.
Smalling and Blind. Alas, poor Blind, our best ball playing CB, wasn't handsome enough for Jose.
Rio and Vidic.
Edit: Oh... you mean this squad? ... hmmmmm...
Edit: Oh... you mean this squad? ... hmmmmm...
It is Smalling +1 as usual. Look at all the options we've tried so far.
Bailly- Terrible start to the season, confidence shot to pieces.
Lindelof- Terrible start to the season (and his entire United career)
Jones- Terrible start to the season (Injured again)
Mctom- Not a centre back
Herrera- Not a centre back
Matic- Undecided. Didn't fill me with confidence yesterday.
Still to try:
Darmian? -I think he has played centre back before, and I don't see why he couldn't play in a back 3.
Rojo? -when is he back?
Bailly- Terrible start to the season, confidence shot to pieces.
Lindelof- Terrible start to the season (and his entire United career)
Jones- Terrible start to the season (Injured again)
Mctom- Not a centre back
Herrera- Not a centre back
Matic- Undecided. Didn't fill me with confidence yesterday.
Still to try:
Darmian? -I think he has played centre back before, and I don't see why he couldn't play in a back 3.
Rojo? -when is he back?
Smalling gets into most other teams. All our other options - not so much.
Smalling and Jones as of today...I know it’s not great,but Bailly and Lindelof are in a mess right now.Its just incredible that 3 Managers cutting across 5 seasons haven’t been able to replace Smalling,Jones and Valencia....
Hate to say it BUT the reality is that our best centre back pairing is ..... Smalling and Jones, it’s far from ideal as it’s nowhere near good enough for us to consistently win trophies BUT it’s the reality.
Bailly should be kept as a squad player but Rojo and Lindelof BOTH need to go as soon as possible and if we could bring in two quality centre backs I’d let Jones go because he’s always injured, when fit Jones is our best centre back but he’s not fit often enough.
Bailly should be kept as a squad player but Rojo and Lindelof BOTH need to go as soon as possible and if we could bring in two quality centre backs I’d let Jones go because he’s always injured, when fit Jones is our best centre back but he’s not fit often enough.
We almost need something like (3-5-2):
De Gea
Jones Smalling Matic
Dalot Fellaini Pogba Shaw
Mata
Sanchez Martial
4-3-3
De Gea
Dalot Smalling Matic Shaw
Fellaini
Pogba Mata
Lukaku Sanchez Martial
De Gea
Jones Smalling Matic
Dalot Fellaini Pogba Shaw
Mata
Sanchez Martial
4-3-3
De Gea
Dalot Smalling Matic Shaw
Fellaini
Pogba Mata
Lukaku Sanchez Martial
Moving Matic to CB full time would be a disaster. I have no idea why anyone would think that it would be a good idea.
I don't understand what happened to Bailly. Could have saved us lots of troubles if he's in the same form as his first season. Now he barley looks like a pro footballer to start with.
Lacking in confidence imo
Who else could we put in the back? We have little to no talent at the back...
Smalling- best current CB so he is a given to start
Jones- injury prone and inconsistent
Bailly- what has happened to him?
Lindelof- awful
Rojo- injury prone
Shaw- no, as he is a LB
Dalot- no, as he is a RB
Valencia- no
Young- no
Darmian- no, as he is a RB/LB
McTominay- no
Fellaini- possibility
Matic- possibility
The other options have failed due to awful performances and/ or injury proneness
It something different and brings the potential benefit of a ball playing defender, something our defence is significantly lacking, hence our tendency to hooffball (to an ineffectual target man).
Smalling with literally any of our other 4 senior CBs would be better than putting guys who have never played the position before there.
All of the veterans are garbage and if we keep putting garbage on the pitch, we will get the same piss poor results. Something drastic has to occur, until we can buy a new CB or two, in January.
Well he has no pace and since he has very little experience playing CB his reading of the game would not make up for it. And his tendency to get caught in possession would be an absolute disaster if he is playing CB. We have issues at the CB position it does not mean we can throw any old person at CB. Lukaku is tall and defends corners well do people think he can play CB too?
He has the pace to keep up with every striker in the league. His touch is abysmal so he could just hoof it up the pitch versus trying to hold up play now (as a striker). He is physical and can win aerial battles. You might be onto something here...
De Gea
Jones Smalling Lukaku
Dalot Fellaini Pogba Shaw
Mata
Sanchez Martial
This is what everyone (myself included) thought when Van Gaal started playing Blind at CB. Yet him and Smalling were the best CB partnership we have had in recent years. Matic is similar to Blind in a lot of ways and has more height and strength so there is definitely a logic to trying him in the position, especially considering our other options.
Plus Mourinho starts him every game no matter what and, frankly, his performances in midfield have been awful this season.
Blind was at least a CB when he was a young player at Ajax. Matic has not really played CB before.
Easy to complain, harder to domain and come up with solutions.
Matic isn't ideal, but worth a try. Strong lad, great passer, will have more time on the ball, plus he seems an intelligent player. Lack of pace is a concern, but Smalling has that in abundance
Even in his first season he was all over the place. Started the season very well for a month or two, then started to look a bit shaky and then got injured. Went to the ACON and when he came back from there he was in incredibly poor form and was quickly dropped again. Came back in and was good for about a month in combination with Rojo, then got injured again.
I'd recall fosu mensah from loan. He needs some coaching but he's far better than any of the current lot bar Mike.
Lindelof + Jones*?
*Until next week of course when the latter picks up an injury.
*Until next week of course when the latter picks up an injury.
Lindelof + 1.
Lindelof is an automatic starter. Let's think about his best partner.
Lindelof is an automatic starter. Let's think about his best partner.
Who knows, we’ll figure it out when Jones inevitably gets injured.
Lindelöf and Koulibaly would be the dream.
Our defenders are all too injury prone. We need to bring in 1 world class CB that's got a good fitness record. Jones and Rojo can leave.
Get Lindelof a partner.
Jones contract should be allowed to expire, and sell Rojo. Keep Smalling/Tuanzebe for 3rd/4th choice and get a leader in next to Lindelof.
Jones contract should be allowed to expire, and sell Rojo. Keep Smalling/Tuanzebe for 3rd/4th choice and get a leader in next to Lindelof.
Lindelof has to play against the bottom teams that will sit back and defend. I think our attackers and movement was amazing, and that Lindelof played well but lets not fool ourselves to believe that Bailly and Smalling would have any trouble at all with the attackers of Cardiff.
Jones was very good too. Did the vast majority of the defending and was caught out less than Lindelof, but also stepped into midfield sometimes just like Lindelof did.
Lindelof did have the one great run and pass through for Rashford though. But he also gave the ball away a lot
Jones has been here too long and made far too many mistakes. He has a couple of good games then gets injured or has a howler. Injuries and a lack of a consistent run in the side ruined the potential he had.
Hopefully a new one in January. This lot have had enough chances.