Very poor in the first half, they were getting between him and Young with ease. Was solid enough in the second half.
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 34
- Clean sheets
- 8
- Goals
- 1
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 2
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
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I feel like a broken record... He is a liability and will be responsible for dropping at least 12 points in every season but hey... He will be great for the next 5 games and all the Mike fans will be like "he's amazing..." the he will shit his pants and we'll loose at home to Bournemouth on 30th of December. Shit the bed waste of space!
Who claimed he was world class?
And yes he's our best CB, most consistent too but he does seem to have a spell these past few seasons where he goes a bit wonky for a few games like now.
And we certainly dont have the depth at CB for when he does.
Taking into consideration that United is supposed to dominate against Bournemouth, yes you could say so. But if you look at that game totally objective then they actually had quite a few nervous moments and feck ups throughout the game. Our defenders mainly had those moments of trouble early in the first half. Some shitty finishing aside and we would have absolutely ridiculed their CB's performances if they played for us.
For me Ake played the ball right to one of our players in the first half, not sure if it was Fred or Mata. Other than that he did well the rest of the game up until the last few mins where he lost concetration and gave up the chance to Rashford ruining his performance.
For me that was still better than Smalling or Lindelof today. Bournemouth had more chances with poor finishing than we did.
Hoped I was wrong but seems he's heading that way. He is horrendous when he's low on confidence and it seems to take him ages to recover.
He also lost a bunch of headers to Sanchez, of which one was flicked to Mata who missed the near post
His passing over 12 yards is League 2 stuff.
Hmm. Maybe you're right, my stream wasn't good so maybe I mistook some players for others but I stand by my point. I like Aké and followed him throughout and while he did good, it wasn't a beastly performance from him at all, imo. A little bit disappointed actually and I do seem to remember there was a few more nervous moments that we failed to capitalise on from central areas of their defence. But I digress. Are you sure about that point about poor finishing? I felt it was pretty even with the chances, but think we had more obvious ones that could have gone in, or at least more of the bigger chances on goal.
yeh. I can't understand how a top CB like him could have that kind of passing skill. His passing was pretty good in the past, especially under LVG.But at least he knows that's his weakness and try to pass it simple. That Rojo bloke is as bad as Smalling but keep trying it throughout the games.
Well Rashford obviously had the best of them when he smashed it straight at Ake - who could hardly have moved out of the way if he wanted to. Just poor finishing from Rashford.
But I can remember 2 or 3 efforts where Bournemouth put their shots straight at De Gea when they had a decent chance. So in terms of accumulation yeah I think Bournemouth were the ones with worse finishing, but Rashford had the best missed chance
Both Lingard and Shaw shot from better positions than any of their chances tho. Terrible finishing and both should have been goals tbh. Sanchez header was a great save too. I think you might be wrong here.
I think that first half performance will give me nightmares for quite sometime.
Not even "best our defender by far" anymore. Last few games Lindelof is better.
Poor in the first half. Didn't help that he had zero protection from our midfielders, though.
Not after one or two not very good performances. Our players are underrated if anything.
And people always having a go at Jose for playing defensive football, perhaps there is a reason for that?
There was another one where Ake completely missed a clearance, I think from Herrera's cross.
Think every defender in the world would look vulnerable with no protection. We've seen how poor Ramos and Varane have been this season, for example.
That said, I don't think it's necessarily playing defensive football as such, but more the lack of playing as a unit. As a unit, especially when we play with 3 midfielders, we look really poor.
I am probably one of Mikes biggest defenders here: IMO he is top3 of defensive CBs in the PL. Defend in a low block where he just needs to attack the ball and from time to time deliver that football to someone as close to him as possible. He is class.
But even I can admit that he is severely exposed as soon as we try to stand a ltb higher up the pitch and even try to press the ball a teeny weeny bit. Like today. He was not good, and if this season is not going to feck itself we need to decide if we are going to sit back low, and try to counter; normal Mourinho style. Then there is not any other defender I would have in the team than Mike.
But he cannot play consistently if we are going to stand higher up the pitch and even try to press the ball from time to time. Neither can Matic who is a great player in a ultra-defensive system but is atrocious in games like today when we actually think we can attack a bit....
Good points. He's definitely much better as a box defender yeah.
Woeful.
We’ll never be a top level side again with him leading our defence.
We’ll never be a top level side again with him leading our defence.
Ah yes, you're right a miskick
Fred also had a clear cut chance.
A lot of peps praise him for being a good traditional defender. I give you that but we re not in 2005 anymore.
The guy can t pass, can t step forward in the construction phase with or w/o the ball, has moments of severe lack of positioning and the occasional bomb in him.
Basically we can t really play out from the back because of him, purely based on his lack of positional sense and ability with his feet. He is also quite a big p0ssy at times, always squaring it to the keeper or just passing it sideways.
This no hate to the guy, just basic stuff.
The guy can t pass, can t step forward in the construction phase with or w/o the ball, has moments of severe lack of positioning and the occasional bomb in him.
Basically we can t really play out from the back because of him, purely based on his lack of positional sense and ability with his feet. He is also quite a big p0ssy at times, always squaring it to the keeper or just passing it sideways.
This no hate to the guy, just basic stuff.
I do like him but that was a poor display from him today.
And there’s still people in this thread that are supporters of the guy. Unbelievable.
I swear they must be watching a different game to me most of the time. Smalling is the reason we can’t build out from the back, he can’t pass, he loses his marker most of the time and his positional sense is non existent.
Combine all that with Ashley fecking Young on the full back and you have a defence that will struggle with ANY attack in the league.
It’s time to trust in the likes of Dalot, Bailly, Lindelöf and Rojo. The fact that the cameras were panning towards Phil Jones when shit was hitting the fan today says it all. As if he would be a fecking improvement on Smalling. They’re the exact same!
So it is time to trust Bailly, Rojo, Lindelof when none of them is actually as good as Smalling.
Lindelöf and Bailly’s ceilings are higher. They have more potential. Smalling will never be any better than he is now but Lindelöf and Bailly have a lot of room to grow.
Rojo always looked solid for us at CB. Would Smalling start for Argentina? Absolutely not.
People want attacking football but we’ll neber get it because Smalling can’t play out from the back. He always uses he keeper or boots it up the pitch or out the field. Rojo is way more comfortable on the ball. He basically offers everything Smalling can’t.
Well, Smalling wouldn't start for Argentina as he's English, not Argentine. Rojo and Smalling are both at Man Utd though and one have been bossing the other for four years.
Smalling is still 28 and the center backs regarded as the best in the world are mostly over 30 - so he can most certainly get better.
I don't know how you managed to decipher Bailly and Lindelof's ceiling, but you can say the same for McTominay. He might have a higher ceiling or more potential than Pogba, Matic, Herrera, Fred, Fellaini but that does not mean we should play him ahead of them.
Rojo is not very good on the ball, just pretends to be, and usually ends up making mistakes that Smalling rarely do. We had Bailly against Brighton, we had Lindelof too, but that was probably our worst attacking perfomance is the League this season. So Bailly, Lindelof and Rojo have not proven to be better than Smalling at anything except perhaps, passing sideways with more grace.
Potential is irrelevant. Performances on the pitch matter.
Bailly has performed the worst of our CBs on the pitch this season. Smalling has performed the best, though hes had a recent slump
We've played good attacking football with Smalling in the team. We havent with the other CBs you mentioned
Smalling is lucky Fergie retired because he'd be shown the door before 2015. Not good enough never was never will be.
Today was an off day. Never looked comfortable
Poor for the first 15-20 minutes, but got better as the match wore on.
It should be very worrying that our 'best' defender is looking even worse than he normally does
For me Lindelof has now overtaken him as our most competent defender.
No he’s (lindelof) overtaken him as our most competent defender who is starting.
Just after 2 games of being crap?
I'm glad some in here won't manage United. Bailly and Lindelof are total disaster as a pair. It's even worse than that Brown- Heinze experiment SAF had once.
Agree. I like Lindelof but I still doubt him when he doesn't have experienced CB as his pair. If only we can have player like Toby Alderweireld.
Anyway, we really need to sell Smalling next season, (also Jones).
Did you watch Spurs? Do you think Alderweireld - Lindelof would take us to another level, or even better than Smalling - Lindelof?Agree. I like Lindelof but I still doubt him when he doesn't have experienced CB as his pair. If only we can have player like Toby Alderweireld.
Anyway, we really need to sell Smalling next season, (also Jones).
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