Adam-Utd
Part of first caf team to complete Destiny raid
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2010
- Messages
- 39,954
That is Hummels main strength, reading the game and positioning. Where he has lacked pace he has made up for this by excellent positioning. For Smalling though he has lightening pace, so he has not had to rely on positioning and reading all his life. Sure you can argue that isn't really a good thing, but like usually fast strikers lack technique, fast defenders generally lack those skills too.I am not talking about his pre-season games only, i also took into account his performances over the last two years. His positioning and switching-off has been a regular feature. Not only for United, but also for England.
I rate him overall, but a lot of guys here just think about him as a sort of charity project. I mean a lot of folks think he still young, he just need to get an experience, he will improve over time, etc. I am not against keeping him, but i am against turning him into Anderson ver. 2. United if we want to win again need to be much more ruthless with players.
Smalling is 24, he will be 25 this year. Hummels is 25 now. But if you look at how they control the space, position themselves it basically looks like Smalling is 19 and Hummels is 30. It's that big of a gap.
But if he is kept as a cover and content in that Brown-like role, maybe he will do good. The good thing about him is that he can give you a great match occasionally and usually against good opposition.
Smalling right now suits our decision to play a high defensive line, where as Hummels like Vidic would not be comfortable playing that way. Unfortunately you can't have the best of both worlds.