Well, I'd take a fecking Goldfish over Maguire this season.
Chris Smalling | Roma player
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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?
But that is blatant English bias. Tottenham and Leicester (both got to the 1/4s of League Cup comfortably, only losing to the finalists Chelsea and Pool) participated in this competition and didn't make the final, Feyenoord and Roma managed to make it to this final.It was the fecking European Conference League Final.
You'd find stronger opposition in the 3rd round of the League Cup.
He is still consistently good despite shortcomings when carrying the ball. Sure you want to upgrade him for a better player but he shouldn't even be considered as compared to the rest. A blunder that paid off heavily.
Smalling is doing, good for him. Him being the best defender we had post Rio/Ferdinand has more to do with players post them performing terribly rather than him being phenomenal during his time here.
No you don't. I can bet if we were in Conference League we would get beaten. And if we didn't had Ronaldo pulling goals out of his ass, we wouldn't have been reached top 16 in UCL.It was the fecking European Conference League Final.
You'd find stronger opposition in the 3rd round of the League Cup.
Roma themselves got trashed 6 something by a side whose name I don't even remember. I can bet this United team would have lost to that team.
We have tried to spend money on improving our defenders, but none of them are better than Smalling and Evans that we sold that SAF had.
Although to be fair many are better when not playing for us and do badly for others. Smalling though actually played well for us too.
Although to be fair many are better when not playing for us and do badly for others. Smalling though actually played well for us too.
Happy for him, he was underrated with shit takes like "VAR will finish him". More players should leave PL for other leagues, serie A has been good destination for PL players.
I said pretty much the same thing in that thread, too. He was better than everyone bar Maguire and that is still the case. He should’ve been partnering Maguire like with Blind. They compensated each others weaknesses.
I don't know about Leicester but Spurs didn't bother to take the competition seriously
Lots of people have always maintained that he was a good defender, which he is
He's dominated Harry Kane more than once. He's older now, but this shouldn't be a surprise.
Good player. Nothing more, nothing less. Was smart enough to understand that Ole had an awful squad management, and even though he was promised game time, he knew he wouldn't get. We needed an upgrade on him, yet we managed to downgrade.
Always thought he was the best CB of the post SAF era. But he doesn't suit the direction we want to go in. Would have theoretically been good for Ole - ball.
Yep. Ole seemed to 'want' to play a more progressive style with centre backs who could participate in the build-up, but in reality we ended up playing not that much differently than we did under Mourinho. As such Smalling would have been fine and would have continued to be our best centreback. He's comfortably better defensively than any of the others. In saying that, I believe he has struggled with injuries the last few years and he had been showing signs of a physical decline in his last season here, so I wouldn't say it was an obvious clear-cut mistake.
Obviously with ETH coming in he wouldn't have had a place any longer though.
*And then he went and spent £50m on a fullback like Wan-Bissaka.
Loved the man, excellent defender who fell victim to defenders turning to strikers. Unbeatable on the deck or in the air though, and always felt he was the natural partner for Maguire when we signed him and the two would have actually formed a rock solid partnership.
#SmallingPlusOne
#SmallingPlusOne
he was never promised game time. In fact, it was the reason why he decided to go. Nice try on revising history though.https://www.teamtalk.com/news/chris-smalling-man-utd-solskjaer-decision-roma-move
Spurs probably would have made the final to be honest if they didn't have to forfeit that game against Rennes.
I think he was also talking about the competition strength in depth, which is probably somewhat fair when you consider the level of quality in the group stage amongst the teams from Malta, Armenia, Cyprus, Estonia, Kazakhstan etc.
Smalling/Evans > Maguire/Lindelöf
We are a laughing stock, a complete shambles.
We are a laughing stock, a complete shambles.
I think Smalling has always been a pretty good defender but it is much easier to play well as a centre back in a side that is well-drilled at restricting opponents' space when compared to a side that might as well not be playing with a midfield at times.
If you think Smalling would look just as good here as he does at Roma you're living in cloud cuckoo land.
If you think Smalling would look just as good here as he does at Roma you're living in cloud cuckoo land.
Bodo Glimt. A game in which Mourinho played his reserves to show the board he needed funds.
If there was VAR they would have been knocked out even with a win over Rennes.
If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle.
He might have been a lot of things, but had he stayed I'm willing to bet he'd have bust a nut for the team.
It sounds as a promise to me: "“I was in constant dialogue with Ole and he told me that I would play a fair amount of games. I would’ve played 20-25 games, maybe more, but then Roma made their offer."
https://www.teamtalk.com/news/chris-smalling-man-utd-solskjaer-decision-roma-move
https://theathletic.com/1333545/201...you-see-the-same-players-picked-on-its-tough/
From the article you posted, Smalling claims that only in the last day of the italian window, (when he was already been replaced in the bench by Tuanzebe) he informed Smalling that he does not know when his next game will be. Thank you for bringing more proof that Ole did not how to handle a squad! Weird try to defend Ole though.
Why did you cut off half of the quote? Where he says Roma will offer him twice as much?
I showed that you don't know what you're talking about. Ole was always honest in only promising him a squad role (20-25 games isn't a starter, Maguire plays 50+) right up until the end. Thank you for providing that article though. He had no intention of playing second fiddle to the new incoming CB and Roma was going to make him their first choice. No brainer there.
One of better defenders he'd be, if he played in days of Gary Pallister.
Because it's irrelevant what Roma offered. I said Ole promised him game time, not that he will be a starter. By the start of the year, it was evident to Smalling that even those 25 games (or more as he hinted) were never going to occur. Before start critizing someone for revisionism try to understand what he is saying.
So again the quote “I was in constant dialogue with Ole and he told me that I would play a fair amount of games." This is a promise (or an assurance) of game time, not that he will be a starter.
Well done to him. Also comes across as a nice guy in interviews. Probably a good guy to have in the dressing room... if only we had a few more players like that...
Spurs haven't won anything in 15 years, considering this competition to be beneath them would be stupid. They put up similar teams to what they usually put in the first rounds of the League Cup, but they lost games. When they turned to the best squad it was still not enough to turn the H2H with Vitesse (0-1, 2-3). This just proves that the opposition isn't as poor as the poster suggested.
Leicester won the FA cup 2021, qualified for the EL, and came 3d in their group behind Moscow and Napoli... Ended up in this competition and were quickly considered favorites to win it. It made sense financially, Leicester is the richest club to take part in the KO stages. And it also makes sense in regard to experience, Leicester has some PL winning players in their squad and had won the FA just last season as well as finishing top 5 of the PL for two years running.
"Ahead of the semi-final, City are favourites to go on and win the competition with SkyBet pricing them at 2/1. Marseille are currently second favourites at 9/4. Semi-final opponents Roma are third favourites at 5/2, with Feyenoord the 4/1 outsiders for the trophy. "
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/...ropa-conference-league-odds-leicester-6664902
Wasn't Pallister actually good on the ball or I am mixing him with McGrath?
Pally had great control, but to be fair to Smalling both Pally and Chris were so much faster than Maguire... not to mention Smalling cost United bag of chips.
For that time, t'was a great deal.
People seem to ignore this. Our defenders are generally on a hiding to nothing when we are under the kosh.
Teams like City and Liverpool can play with fullbacks who are basically wingers because they are almost always on the front foot and as a unit they are quite often defending on the half way line as the team dominate the game. They also have quality, hard working midfielders shielding them and tracking back to help.
Teams that are generally on the back foot all game defend deep and the whole team in involved in defence so again, their defenders have an easier time of things.
United are in the middle ground where nothing really works. There are gaping holes between the midfield and defence, the defence sits quite deep even when we are attacking and they get little help when we are defending. Even when we are under the kosh and in theory defending with almost the entire team the players are dealing with runs not being tracked, attackers not being tackled in front of them and generally getting very little help.
I'm not saying our defence/defenders have covered themselves in glory but I am pretty sure that having a non-existent midfield in front of you that the opposition pour through doesn't help.
LVG has a lot to answer for
Is this not a bit like the criticism that Smalling and Jones had to take 3-4 years ago when so many of the problems in our team were laid at their feet. Replace them with a ball playing CB and everyone else would be able to show their true level, heard so many variations on that line of thought. Ended up with us having 2 guys in Maguire and Lindelof who have no history in England of being part of a strong defensive unit, but hey they are alright on the ball.
We need to improve in midfield but lets not pretend or allow the inadequacies of others to be hidden behind their flaws. No defensive contribution from attack at all, our midfield being constantly out numbered and having massive space to cover, untracked runners coming from everywhere.
Structurally Utd were a total embarrassment this season. This is also why I think Rangnick deserves to be looked at harshly, not expecting him to be able to turn us into a flowing side but a coach of his experience should be able to improve the shape of the team, but if anything it got worse.
He was excellent under LvG, which doesn't quite fit the narrative that he would be terrible under someone like Ten Haag. He was poor with the ball when he wasn't trusted, but he was also most suited to playing high defensive line more than any defender we've had in these ten years too.
Anyway, easily the best defender we've had post Vidic and Ferdinand, and the fact that we've spent so much money on defenders since then(we have signed most expensive English CB, CL winning defender, few most promising young defenders in the world, etc.) and couldn't find better means that people really shouldn't be blaming Smalling.
Another reason why he deserves praise is that he is probably the only player in last ten years or so who went to play football and chase his career and not root on Manchester United bench and stay in his comfort zone and steal millions in the process.
Anyway, easily the best defender we've had post Vidic and Ferdinand, and the fact that we've spent so much money on defenders since then(we have signed most expensive English CB, CL winning defender, few most promising young defenders in the world, etc.) and couldn't find better means that people really shouldn't be blaming Smalling.
Another reason why he deserves praise is that he is probably the only player in last ten years or so who went to play football and chase his career and not root on Manchester United bench and stay in his comfort zone and steal millions in the process.
The defenders we have now are no better (if not worse) interms of ability than our past back up defenders like smalling .. Jones..brown..Oshea...Silvestre..Phil Neville..etc.
From what I heard, that's pretty much how Morinho thought going into Roma, and look at the result. It's something to build from when you haven't done anything in years. He knew that. Oh no... did I just give props to the Moaning One?
Smalling was great. Shits all over the likes of Lindelof and Bailly and was unlucky to find himself out of the team. Something or other about being good on the ball, which I’m yet to really see with any great success from any of his successors.
"Smalling is our best centerback post Fergie"
"Smalling was not good enough and selling him was the right decision"
Both of these statements can be true... Just saying