13.5m according to transfermarkt is not great these days
Chris Smalling | Roma player
- Thread starter roonster09
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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?
With add ons it was close to 20M. Decent for a 30 year old squad player with two years left on his deal.
Footballer in married to braindead titmodel shocker.
Regardless of who we had at the time, Smalling was never good enough to be first choice.
We expected more from Bailly and Lindelof. More than we expected from Maguire. Typical of our transfer business over last 7/8 years.
Just read the interview with Jose. To see Chris bossing it at Roma after we replaced him with non other than Harry Maguire is up there with one of our more regretful pieces of business that I can remember.
Not really.
Smalling was always very underrated by our fanbase, as was Evans for that matter.
That's an overrated opinion
I agree, all my opinions have always been so incredibly great that people began overrating them to basically gospel. Still all great mind.
His passing was obviously not good enough, but he's still the best centerback we've had post Fergie(jury still out on Varane). I felt a lot safer on counter-attacks and crosses when Smalling was on the pitch.
People unfairly and lazily lumped him in with Phil Jones when he's really a solid defender and no where near as injury prone.
Just remembered that Moyes played him as a right back which was mind boggling to me.
Just remembered that Moyes played him as a right back which was mind boggling to me.
Are we still crying about a defender that we let go and wasn't good enough?
He was a decent back-up CB but as a consistent first teamer we could do and should've done far better.
So you were fine when we sold Jaap Stam?
Even if he was peak Baresi defensively you can’t play for a top team today while being as bad on the ball as he is. Attacking starts from the back and he’d always hold us back.
He is a perfect CB for Jose. Low block and sweeps everything in the air. The moment you ask him to pass , he would be found out. No, he isn't better than Harry. HM has been horrible this season but even Vidic would be hilariously bad with this team.
Glad we have moved on from Smalling.
Glad we have moved on from Smalling.
If you listen to SAF, he says that was his biggest transfer mistake.
No one will ever say that about Smalling.
Are you saying Smalling is as good as Stam?
Yes or no mate?If you listen to SAF, he says that was his biggest transfer mistake.
No one will ever say that about Smalling.
Are you saying Smalling is as good as Stam?
He is gone we are still not playing progressive football (it's now de Gea fault) and we are still conceding goals for fun, actually this is our worst defensively in the PL era if I am not wrong.
Blind + Smalling > every other CB combo we've had post-SAF
Letting him go wasn’t really a mistake. Ambition requires better players than Smalling... But the replacement has been so poor and so expensive that some “crying” is understandable.
Didn't want him to leave at the time. His passing ability was limited but a better pure defender than Lindelof and Maguire..
Roma fans from what I've read him quite highly, which is no surprise to me because defensively he's excellent. In pure defending terms probably the best defender we've had in the past decade.
Passing obviously not ideal but I've seen him more adventurous with it at Roma, maybe it was a nerves thing and him getting older has helped, or maybe just more space in a back 3 for it.
Passing obviously not ideal but I've seen him more adventurous with it at Roma, maybe it was a nerves thing and him getting older has helped, or maybe just more space in a back 3 for it.
I wanted to see a Smalling /Maguire partnership. 2 cb's who are dominant in the air and are very physical.
The guy has moved on to a weaker league and currently sits in 6th. Our current defensive weaknesses in the team have nothing to do with the decision to let Smalling go nor would he fix them.
Is this supposed to mean anything? We’ve struggled to score goals since Welbeck left, that doesn’t mean he was the answer.
Smalling and Blind....best cb partneship we have had in the post Río and vidic era?
Could've saved 80m as he clearly wasn't the problem.
His lack of ball playing was clearly a problem and he wasn't as sound defensively as people like to remember as well imo.
The issue is we've done a proper shite job of replacing him as you said. The decision to replace him wasn't flawed though.
He is been solid. Not amazing but slightly better than good. His passing has improved so has his courage to go forward with the ball at times partly down to extra protection in a back 3 and partly down to the space and generally slow paced (not always) serie a. Still he has been Roma’s best defender, leader and organiser playing centrally with Gianluca Mancini and Roger Ibanez either side of him in a back 3 and behind Bryan cristante in the midfield.
Reasons - 1) Easy to play for Roma than Manutd expectation wise.
2) Serie a suits him. Less exposed there.
3) Back 3.
4) Dominates in the air more in serie a than in pl.
5) Plays with much more confidence due to being backed by fans and respected by team
mates.
Conclusion - He is still the same player as he was with us just abit slower but abit more mature due to age and also abit more confident especially with the ball at his feet. Was never good for us still not good enough for us. Mkhitaryan is also been good for Roma, their best attacking midfield outlet and performer alongside Lorenzo pellegrini. Should we moan about his departure too ? Caf has to do better.
Reasons - 1) Easy to play for Roma than Manutd expectation wise.
2) Serie a suits him. Less exposed there.
3) Back 3.
4) Dominates in the air more in serie a than in pl.
5) Plays with much more confidence due to being backed by fans and respected by team
mates.
Conclusion - He is still the same player as he was with us just abit slower but abit more mature due to age and also abit more confident especially with the ball at his feet. Was never good for us still not good enough for us. Mkhitaryan is also been good for Roma, their best attacking midfield outlet and performer alongside Lorenzo pellegrini. Should we moan about his departure too ? Caf has to do better.
I wanted him to leave at that point but I also wanted us to improve upon him. Oh well.
We already have the tallest and most aerially dominant team in the league as is, for all the good it does us. And our CBs specifically fair fine compared to our supposed rivals when it comes to the percentage of the aerial battles they win. For example:
Maguire: 73.9%
Varane: 64.9%
Dias: 59.6%
Laporte: 67.6%
And that City side are the best defence in the league. Even in the supposedly super-physical PL, being dominant in the air isn't that important in and of itself.
What matters a lot more is how often your CBs are having to fight for the ball in the air and where on the pitch they're doing it.
I think the point is that we didn't, and instead we spent the best part of £200m not doing better.
That and defenders are not closed the way they are in England. Like Lukaku, he's not gotten any better in Italy, just his weaknesses are not exposed so much. If anything he's gotten a bit worse as his physical attributes decline with age.
I wanted him gone but not to be replaced by Maguire; for 80m!
Why? He was our best CB at that time I feel. He did have been last on the list. How Jones survived him and is still here is criminal.
The problem with Smalling was always his passing. Well, some of his defending too, but mostly his passing.
In his last two seasons with us he was in the bottom 1% and 6% for progressive passes, averaging 1.1 progressive passes per game. In other words you could only bank on him to make a single pass every game that went forward more than 10 yards.* That just isn't something we could carry.
As others have said, the issue was not replacing him well enough.
*excluding passes from the defending 40% of the pitch.
In his last two seasons with us he was in the bottom 1% and 6% for progressive passes, averaging 1.1 progressive passes per game. In other words you could only bank on him to make a single pass every game that went forward more than 10 yards.* That just isn't something we could carry.
As others have said, the issue was not replacing him well enough.
*excluding passes from the defending 40% of the pitch.
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Have lindelof and maguire really improved us over Smalling? not really.
That in lies the problem. We spend spend spend on new players but they rarely actually make us better.
That in lies the problem. We spend spend spend on new players but they rarely actually make us better.
Is Smalling as good as Stam? Easy no.
Disagree. He was by some distance our best pure defender. He dominated on the ground by being one of our fastest players and aerially through his height. He also was great at set pieces defensively and offensively. I find it hard to see how we'd be in a worse situation than we are at the moment because he can't hit a sexy pass. Our defensive stats with and without him since Fergie left tells it's own story. It's criminal that we threw away most of our transfer kitty on his replacement yet the rest of our squad fell into disrepair.