As a general point, I like Smalling, he seems a decent lad and he’s very game, but regardless of how good he might look when compared with the other feckwits we have playing at centre half, he lets us down far too often. I don’t think he should necessarily be sold, as he’s better than almost everyone else we have, but we need to get to a point where he’s a squad player. Hoping that he’ll suddently stop doing the sort of stuff he’s been doing for years now is just wilfully naive, IMHO.
I rate him, but I agree, especially the bold. He gets the most flack and is always the first to be named as being sold, but he's still better than the rest. It'd be mental to get shot of him whilst the others are even worse and/or perennially injured.
Ideally Bailly and Lindelof wake up and start to reach the potential they supposedly have, or we buy better quality centre backs. Until either of those happen, Smalling is a starter. Lindelof seems to be making some gradual improvements and has been decent the last few games, but Bailly is a bombscare.
The only way I see Smalling dropping down the pecking order is if we spend big on a centre back, but I doubt that will happen in January.
As for what opposition fans think, who gives a shit? in 2006-09 many opposition fans called us a one man team, Ronaldo + 10 others, and we had peak Rio, Vidic and Evra in defence. If they think Bailly is our best defender, then they don't watch us for a full 90 when he plays. The guy can't even head the ball.