12
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 55
- Clean sheets
- 24
- Goals
- 2
- Assists
- 1
- Yellow cards
- 13
- Red cards
- 1
- Status
Blind looks slightly terrified 
Thats one big ass forehead Blind has.
Yeah, needs to stop wearing his hair like that, he emphasises it like that
They were world class, and then some. Rio at his best is the best centre back I've ever seen. The partnership with Vidic is the best partnership I've ever seen. We've been spoilt. If not for DDG's insane level, we would be thinking the same about the goalkeeper position as well considering we've had Schmeichel and VDS. There are so many big shoes to fill. Smalling is not at Rio's level. Rio can comfortably say that anything he can do, I could do better (maybe bar aerial duels).
I hope he's not as concerned with it as you are
I wasnt the one commenting on it first, but i cant look past it now.I hope he's not as concerned with it as you are
He jarred his knee in one the CL games (Wolfsburg away?) and he never looked the same after that.
He was playing at a good level at the start of the season, but since then no one has really paid much attention to him individually and just assumed he's been putting in good performances.
His end to the season has been really bad. In the last few weeks he's got sent off and scored two own goals, and has just generally been all over the place.
He's the best of a bad bunch. For me it's imperative to bring in a top level CB
This is the point though - after being beaten by Wickham of all people there was noway he should have tried to get in front of Bolasie to nick the ball - he was never making it there first and should have stayed goalside and kept it a 2 v 2 situation with Blind and allow the others time to get back. I mean yes once he made that first error it was always downhill from there and better he take the red but he was stupid to get into the same situation again after his previous error in the same game. Still much improved from his previous seasons but still not quite where he needs to be and has tailed of since returning from injury.
Sums the caf up at the moment. So reactionary, and emotionally bi-polar when ti comes to United.
Great season for him, clearly our best defender and with a proper defender beside him he can level-up next season. I hope he has a great Euro's.
He needs a defensive partner who is actually a defender. I don't get the notion of us needing a left footer centreback and has the ability to bring the ball up the field. We need a proper hard guy to partner him at the back. He is by far one of the best talents we have in the team.
That notion has left the club.
thank goodness
He needs to improve his thinking abilities
Yeah just like when you are in Blind's thread eh? Funny.
I agree, needs to do some Math quiz during the Euros and get him fit
Pardon me? Are you insinuating that my stance on Daley Blind has been "reactionary and emotionally bi-polar" when I've held a constant opinion that I think he has been poor for certain and calculated reasons through the entire season? In your attempt at some petty and sad one-upmanship in a thread completely off-topic, you've had a complete mare here, pal.
If I was on the caf at the start of the season I'd have happily told you that he shouldn't be playing 40+ games starting at CB for us this season and here I sit, right now, with the same un-reactionary and unwavering opinion.
LOL stop going too emotional over it.
Constant shit opinion is still constant shit opinion though. And not being able to change one's mind despite seeing different is eh special I guess?
He needs to do some doodles first
His defending at times is simply awful, Final being a good example.
Why all the grappling with players?
Hugely overated by some.
Why all the grappling with players?
Hugely overated by some.
Yes, but we are playing a high-line defence a set-up that is terrible for Smalling, the one he does not have qualities to play really. And the fact that he has been our better performer this year, easily a top-3 one, only shows how much progress he 's made. No doubt he will be much-much better once we start to defend deeper.
He can't really match the speed of many strikers and his ability to defend running towards the goal is not great either. He clearly prefers to face his opponents, when he defends "from the back" with striker coming at him he is much much better, hardly lets them through.
He's not a tough tackling CB or a Ball playing CB. What is he then?
Thought people said his asset is his pace and one on one defending?
You have to be good at intercepting at United. We are not going to defend from deep often and we should not be. It will be boring as feck.
I don't think he is a bad defender. Just have some odd habits in certain situations.
He is a stripping defender, alright.
Their is a difference between "deep" and "normal" line defending. In that match he had almost an insane high line sometimes. I don't suggest we go "deep", but surely a bit deeper won't hurt.
1-on-1 defending sure, it kind of means that you defend against player running at you, what i have described. Pace? Not sure, he is surely not the fastest CB esp in terms of acceleratio and pace, rather than speed (long range running).
United players have said in interviews multiple times that Smalling is one of the fastest players in the side.
Yet he loses almost every second speed chasing i see him in, if not more. I hardly believe he can be faster than Young, Shaw, Valencia, Martial, so even if we don't go to Ander, Lingard and the rest, being 5-th hardly qualifies "one of the fastest" and this four players are much much faster.
So in short, you are saying he needs to work on positioning? I think that's what it is.
There is not much point playing a defender who can't intercept/stop the ball often from the others receiving it and turning around and leaving him dead regardless of where they defend. Not for United anyway.
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Have we signed Bruce back?
Brutal
In short the tactics need to be adjusted. Line need to me moved closer to our goal, not as close as in "deep line defending", but closer. Than in that match. I mean LVG played quite a lot of matches with much deeper line than we had in the final, actually i think Palace duped us into playing with such a high line knowing they can exploit it.
I don't get why you keep mentioning interceptions? How does it have to do with anything? Smalling just so you know is actually first in the team in interceptions per game at 2.8. Well Varela is the first at 3.0, but he hardly palyed. So obviously he is quite good in interception the ball. It's just when you play a high line, leave a lot of space behind and the other team just throws the ball long on the wing, how the hell do you supposed to intercept that? There is no way to do it, the only thin to do is to run for it sparring with a forward. And if forward comes deep gets the ball and then again has acres of space just kicks the ball 5-10 meters ahead and runs for it. Again there is nothing you can do in terms of positioning and intercepting it. If you don't have a cover from full back, the only thing you can do is beat the man with your acceleration and pace.
A club like United will be playing high line defense often because we will be attacking more and the other team will always have space to run around. One on one defending is just that one on one. If you are good at it, you are good at it. Nothing to do with if you are at 50 yards or 10 yards from the goal. He needs to get better IF he is shit at it. simple.
Why do I keep mentioning about intercepting? Because it is a huge part of defending no? Ever heard of Fergie talking about Maldini not tackling or almost at all in a game? What do you think how he did it? By mind control? Rio was master at it too. Of course smalling might be the first in the team for it but is it enough?
If you position and intercept well, you are going to get the ball often before the attackers do and you don't have to worry about physical battle or pace battle or pulling shirts and shit much. Simple no?
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Mourinho doesn't play a high line, he normally plays his quite deep.
Of course he does not because he likes to sit deep a lot lately and it is why people think his style is boring. You hope we don't get that kind of crap often.
But, I think he played his line high enough for Real. At chelsea, he couldn't because of terry. If we had vidic in our line now, we couldn't have played either.
Also Jose's intention of buying stones might means he might want to play it high.
And once again, do you understand the difference between a tall person who is 1.9 m and the one that 2.1 m? giant. Both are very tall. The question is how tall. Same thing with line. Of course United will play high line, it will be much higher than WBA one, even with Mourinho, but it does need to be insanely high. Fergie never played with high line, our line of defence under him was more or less the middle one.
And Smalling is quite good at it.
Well Rio "the master" hardly ever top 3.0 interception per game, his rate in 2009-10 was just 1.9. So you make your own conclusions from that. But obviously if Smalling is United's leader in interception it shows that he is okay in that respect at least and that his partner should do more before we asked more of him. Common sense really.
No, that's stupid. Because in real football game you need to cover for your partners, full back and other center-half, they are balls that you just can't intercept etc. Team must defend as a unit, and it's tactic has to be right.
You don't need stat to see if rio was a far better defender than smalling, do you? And, how did Maldini do it again?
And positioning well is stupid? Of course there are balls you can't intercept. But you can when the ball is coming to your area or the guy you are marking. If you think you can't match the pace of attacker, you get there and the ball before he gets it and starts running at you. Or simply position yourself away from him so that you don't get turned around and fecked right away?
You do know that we are talking about generally how smalling got fecked twice or so in similar manner in the last game by almost no named attacker he was supposed to take care of/mark? And i don't even think he is a bad defender. Just need to make sure he does not get exposed like that often.
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No, but to say it was because of interceptions is wrong. As so is saying that Smalling is bad at intercepting the ball (which is what you have implied), that's just stupid, cause there is clear evidence he is not.
What exactly do you think Maldini did? By the sound of it i am not sure you have seen him play. He was a great defender, but him almost not making a tackle is a poppycock. Fergie just said it (if he really did) just to be nice, it's an oblivious exaggeration. It's kinda strange that you don't get it. I've seen Maldini a lot of times, and he did made a lot tackles.
The second thing of course is that Maldini hardly ever played with high line of defence, Milan team and especially Italy were always defending even a bit deeper than your "normal" middle line.
Exactly what i was saying. Some balls you just can't intercept no matter who you are. Even Maldini or Cannavaro would not be able to do that.
That all bad suggestions. If you keep running to the attacker, then you keep space open behind you. And if you step back, you just being stupid because with high line you will just create more option for opposition to attack without getting in the offside position. What you fail to understand is that no matter how skilled you are, Maldini or not, you can't defend alone or if it's two of you. It has to be a team effort. And team's efforts should be based on tactics that are right. And that are suited the team. For example Terry was awful under AVB that decided to play with insanely high line, but last season the 14-15 one when the line was much deeper Terry was integral part of championship winning side. So here you go, a tactics change come a long way. Same for Maldini. It was back in 90s, somewhere in the middle, Milan just won Serie A title with Capello while they had great attacking talent (Weah, Baggio) their win was based on overwhelming defence. Then Capello was "seduced" by Real Madrid. And off he went. Milan tried to replace him with some strange stuff, they had this coach committee or something i don't really remember, anyway the case in point is that Milan started to play differently and their great defence with Maldini was never to be found. The team was leaking goals. Because of fragility at the back the attacking play suffered as well. Of course the fact that some of the players were old did not help. They tried to come back first to Sacchi then Capello, did not work for them. From 1st place Milan went to 7-8 or something like that. And the great Maldini could do nothing about it. So system is way more important than the player.
LVG this season did not always played such as high line like we did against Palace in the Cup, and in games where our line was medium Slamming has done from "good" to "very good", even great. And his interception stats only prove that is very confident in intercepting the ball, when the tactics are right.
With the right tactics he won't. He would still make a mistake, but that stuff in FA Cup final was much more down to the wrong approach rather than his personal misses. Which is what i am trying to tell you.
Agree with that, I think he must have suffered with Nerves badly that game, he didn't look right from the first minute. Hoofed 1 ball straight out for a throw in, then was running like bambie on Ice against Wickham. Sometimes your body just doesn't work like it normally does, but he's definitely quicker than Wickham usually. Don't know if he had an injury or something but that was the reason he kept getting so close to people, ended up screwing himself over against Bolasie in the end.
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