His 1 v 1 is not bad but for a premiership defender he gets dragged out of position too often. Both him and Blind have a tendency to go for a stroll when we are being attacked.
The number of times a midfielder has to drop into defence to cover for them is abnormal, no wonder the CMs look clueless half the time.
Does it not baffle people how other defenders manage to mark strikers without engaging in a wrestling contest or chasing them into their own half. The more battles he engages in the more chaotic the defence becomes. Too busy defending as individuals those two and complicating things for the 5 players around them.
He gets dragged out of position because he is often covering ground for his other teammates, these are unfortunate circumstances that are always going to happen when our defense consistently gets involved in the attack.
As for your statement about "marking", we should keep in mind that 1V1s are part of the game. When a defender loses his man, or gets beaten off a run, or we are on the counter attack they are inevitabe. The fact that Smalling is always there to bail our other defenders or our players is pretty damn good and I can bet my life we would have been screwed had he not been in position to stop those attacks.
Our defensive organization has not been perfect, much like Smalling's form right now, and his ball playing skills still need to improve, but lets not act like he isn't one of the main reasons we have conceded only 27 goals in 29 games in the league.
