He doesn't have poor positioning though. If anything he positions himself very well to intercept, he's aggressive so sometimes it doesn't always come off.Physique and fitness are very important to Bailly. When he's fit, he's able to make up for his own mistakes and recovers from his poor positioning. When he's not, however, it would look terrible and disastrous. If he could stay away from injuries, he's a decent option for us.
Precisely. 10 years ago we hoped Smalling and Jones were the natural successors to Rio and Vidic. It didn't work out for either of them and it's disappointing they played here for so long.1: No Smalling had been here a decade and has proven he’s nowhere near good enough. He is decent as a pure defender but has no composure on the ball and wouldn’t get in modern progressive teams. Lindelof and Bailly are both better players by a distance.
2:No (see above)
I expect on usual people will rush to his defence.
We've played that game unsuccessfully with Jones and Anderson for years in the past.Physique and fitness are very important to Bailly. When he's fit, he's able to make up for his own mistakes and recovers from his poor positioning. When he's not, however, it would look terrible and disastrous. If he could stay away from injuries, he's a decent option for us.
Bailly does have poor positioning at times, not often though.He doesn't have poor positioning though. If anything he positions himself very well to intercept, he's aggressive so sometimes it doesn't always come off.
The only true weakness he has is heading and being a bit erratic, but I feel the older he gets the better he would be. IMO for me I'd have him next to Maguire over lindelof.
This is a tricky stat because it causes one to think that Smalling was the reason for those errors.Tweet
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1. Yes1. Would they be our best CB pairing?
2. Would they be good enough to win the league/compete in the CL with?
I think it's more than not being a backup. He was backup in previous seasons and won his place. It was mainly that Tuanzebe was now 3rd choice instead of him who is younger and who Ole would likely favour. If he was told he'd be 3rd choice with a chance to win a starting place he'd have stayed. But he'd be behind too many people to get his chance for this season.Smalling doesn't want to be a back up which is why he left and Ole wants to play out from the back which is why Ole didn't mind not including him.
VAR is not just in England you know. He's been playing in Italy this season.Smalling is a squad player and nothing more. And this was before VAR came in. I can't imagine how many penalties he would have given away this year considering how 'handsy" he is. In my opinion, a team needs 4 or 5 central defenders. Your two main starters, a veteran and a youngster (and possibly one other). At United, if we still had Smalling that would give us 7 (Maguire, Lindeloff, Bailley, Jones, Tuanzebe, Rojo and Smalling). So for our "veteran" it was between Jones and Smalling. And I don't think we "chose" Jones over Smalling. I think it was more of who still has some value.
Agreed with this.We can sometimes focus so much on a player's weaknesses that we ignore that they're actually pretty good. Pogba's defensive awareness, Rashford's technique, Martial's movement, Maguire's pace, AWB's attacking, etc have all been used as reasons why they're not good enough.
The thing is, if we get so hung up on that, we start to think they're bad players instead of realizing they simply need their strengths magnified and weaknesses hidden. For instance, Martial didn't run in behind that much on the left, causing accusations of poor movement and mentality. At the same time Rashford was accused of poor technique and hold up play for a striker. Instead of binning them off, Ole switched their positions, and suddenly they're both firing and have good synergy. You can see the same with Pogba as when he played in a 3 as the more attacking mid as opposed to a 2 with more defensive duties, the performances were much better.
I think if every one of our players is put in a position to succeed, they'll show they're actually quite good, and Smalling is no exception. His technique isn't good, but he's been part of one of the best defences in the league several times now. If he's put in a situation where his superior defensive qualities are important and his lack of ball handling isn't, he'll be viewed as a top CB. It's probably not going to be at Utd though since Ole wants both CB's to be good at ball handling, even if it's at the expense of defensive ability. And that's fine if that's what the boss prefers, but it doesn't necessarily make Smalling a bad player.
And to be honest, I think Smalling and Maguire theoretically fit together and hide each others' weaknesses much better than Lindelof and Maguire, but at this point it's probably too late to go down that road.
Nicely put. This!We can sometimes focus so much on a player's weaknesses that we ignore that they're actually pretty good. Pogba's defensive awareness, Rashford's technique, Martial's movement, Maguire's pace, AWB's attacking, etc have all been used as reasons why they're not good enough.
The thing is, if we get so hung up on that, we start to think they're bad players instead of realizing they simply need their strengths magnified and weaknesses hidden. For instance, Martial didn't run in behind that much on the left, causing accusations of poor movement and mentality. At the same time Rashford was accused of poor technique and hold up play for a striker. Instead of binning them off, Ole switched their positions, and suddenly they're both firing and have good synergy. You can see the same with Pogba as when he played in a 3 as the more attacking mid as opposed to a 2 with more defensive duties, the performances were much better.
I think if every one of our players is put in a position to succeed, they'll show they're actually quite good, and Smalling is no exception. His technique isn't good, but he's been part of one of the best defences in the league several times now. If he's put in a situation where his superior defensive qualities are important and his lack of ball handling isn't, he'll be viewed as a top CB. It's probably not going to be at Utd though since Ole wants both CB's to be good at ball handling, even if it's at the expense of defensive ability. And that's fine if that's what the boss prefers, but it doesn't necessarily make Smalling a bad player.
And to be honest, I think Smalling and Maguire theoretically fit together and hide each others' weaknesses much better than Lindelof and Maguire, but at this point it's probably too late to go down that road.
I stop there. Injury prone players can never be relied upon. They tend to break when you need them most. We should have learnt that when we had Hargreaves, Fabio and Jones.Physique and fitness are very important to Bailly. When he's fit, he's able to make up for his own mistakes and recovers from his poor positioning. When he's not, however, it would look terrible and disastrous. If he could stay away from injuries, he's a decent option for us.
Great post.We can sometimes focus so much on a player's weaknesses that we ignore that they're actually pretty good. Pogba's defensive awareness, Rashford's technique, Martial's movement, Maguire's pace, AWB's attacking, etc have all been used as reasons why they're not good enough.
The thing is, if we get so hung up on that, we start to think they're bad players instead of realizing they simply need their strengths magnified and weaknesses hidden. For instance, Martial didn't run in behind that much on the left, causing accusations of poor movement and mentality. At the same time Rashford was accused of poor technique and hold up play for a striker. Instead of binning them off, Ole switched their positions, and suddenly they're both firing and have good synergy. You can see the same with Pogba as when he played in a 3 as the more attacking mid as opposed to a 2 with more defensive duties, the performances were much better.
I think if every one of our players is put in a position to succeed, they'll show they're actually quite good, and Smalling is no exception. His technique isn't good, but he's been part of one of the best defences in the league several times now. If he's put in a situation where his superior defensive qualities are important and his lack of ball handling isn't, he'll be viewed as a top CB. It's probably not going to be at Utd though since Ole wants both CB's to be good at ball handling, even if it's at the expense of defensive ability. And that's fine if that's what the boss prefers, but it doesn't necessarily make Smalling a bad player.
And to be honest, I think Smalling and Maguire theoretically fit together and hide each others' weaknesses much better than Lindelof and Maguire, but at this point it's probably too late to go down that road.
Thanks for clearing that up for me (yes that is sarcasm). the game in England is much different than the game in Italy. In Italy there is a lot more zonal marking where attackers are given space. In England however there is a lot more man marking where someone like Smaling tends to get caught out of position and then becomes a wee bit handsy. We've seen it over and over again through out his United career. But he used to get away with it. Not so sure he would now with VAR...VAR is not just in England you know. He's been playing in Italy this season.
He got called for it once in his entire career. Since VAR has come in he has played many times with it and never been penalised. In the World Cup we saw far far worse than he ever does and, other than one cheap penalty, it was never penalised. We see similar situations every game in the league this season and as far as I know not a one has been given (if I'm wrong feel free to point out the incident as obviously I haven't seen every match). The entire thing is blown massively out of proportion.Thanks for clearing that up for me (yes that is sarcasm). the game in England is much different than the game in Italy. In Italy there is a lot more zonal marking where attackers are given space. In England however there is a lot more man marking where someone like Smaling tends to get caught out of position and then becomes a wee bit handsy. We've seen it over and over again through out his United career. But he used to get away with it. Not so sure he would now with VAR...
