Quote:
Originally Posted by atticusgrinch
Smalling can't pass a football. He can't mark someone without holding onto them for dear life.
He's shit.
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however, the primary responsibility of a central defender is defending, not being a juan sebastian. when bale, for example, runs through on goal and smalling outpaces him and clears up... you think anyone else we have is doing that? he stopped at least three more or less certain goals last night. lindelof had bale in a similar position a couple of minutes after smalling's rio-esque intervention and struggled for pace and strength (he still got it clear, but it was inconvincing). smalling is also our best defender in the air.
of course, smalling has his bad points - pulling shirts every £#%&!ing time and occasionally stepping into ridiculous positions... and his distribution is woeful. but all our defenders have their weaknesses. rojo, for example, appears to be incapable of following the flight of a ball played into our box - he's always running underneath. that's a big failing in our league.