Eden Hazard got our RB and DM yellows in 30 minutes and barely had a sniff at goal despite Chelsea having most of the ball. The CBs were good. There were multiple dangerous situations that got snuffed out out by Smalling and Lindelof.
We defended with 9 behind the ball at times. The defensive efforts for me, praise be to the team for working hard. Maybe im being short sighted but he didnt enough to start over Bailly. The holding in the box really pisses me off. He does that all the time instead of actually defending. Man the ******** up.
I thought he was good. I agree about the holding. Bailly is a toss up over Smalling for me. He's obviously much better on the ball, but he goes walkabout more and makes rash challenges. Smalling on the other hand averages fewer than 1 yellow per 10 games. He's not close to Rio, but he's as clean a defender as we've had since**. Grappling in the box aside.
Smalling shares some behind the scenes stories about United's win in Paris. https://www.skysports.com/football/...e-behind-the-scenes-at-man-utds-paris-miracle It's been said so much by now, but you really get the feeling that the club is getting back to what it used to be in so many aspects. And it's just an amazing feeling.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ex...n-Utd-news-Chris-Smalling-PSG-John-O-Shea/amp It’s likely Smalling would rather not be referred to as Chrissy.
Smalling on the Messi 'incident', fan abuse and other topics. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/47900492
The Smallings have welcomed their baby boy into the world. The latest what has been a busy season in the new addition department at the club.
Chris Smalling to AS Roma from Man United, here we go! Total agreement for a simple loan (€3M to Man Utd) without buy option. The player has accepted. 🔴 #MUFC #Roma #transfers— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) August 29, 2019
https://www.skysports.com/football/...g-to-join-roma-on-loan-from-manchester-united No option to buy here either apparently, so he's another one who we have to hope have a good enough season to convince Roma (or whoever else) to take him on permanently next summer. It's another big salary off the books for this season (and potentially longer) so it's another positive. Best of luck to him though and hope he makes it Serie A.
I'm getting sick of these cheap Italian clubs and their loans. We should at least be putting in obligations to buy in the agreements.
We gave him a new contract just 8 months ago(2 days before Mourinho was sacked) and now he might be off on loan. Great planning....
Clearly it's a good decision to offload some CB wages in some form or other, but it's really an indictment of our long-term squad planning that it has come to this. The way the CB position has been handled alone would get a DoF shit-canned at any club that wasn't such a joke.
Personally would have preferred it if Rojo or Jones had gone (still might be a possibility for the former to happen this window I think), if for no other reason that Smalling is more reliable than the other 2. But the bottom line is, our CB corps has too many bodies and it (still) needs to be streamlined. Side note, find it interesting that in the end Roma decided to go with Smalling when they were in talks with Pool over the 'best in the world' Lovren. Smalling has his limitations, but he's still solid overall and I can see him doing well enough there, provided he has a minimum of help/competent players around him.
Opportunity for Axel ... hopefully .. and someone please take Rojo Jones away aswell. I would have preferred Smalling stay ahead of these 2 clowns aswell..
Its probably a case of he was easiest to ship. I'm ole said try to ship 2 of Rojo, Jones and Smalling. I dont really mind which one.
Chris Smalling's Highlights at UnitedI forgot how bad he actually was 😂https://t.co/maeRYVmpgs— Paul 𝕏 Manc Bald and Bred (@MufcWonItAll2) August 29, 2019
https://www.skysports.com/football/...nar-solskjaer-confirms-roma-loan-for-defender Rojo is truly a cockroach