Trying to read Louis van Gaal must be as hard for his Manchester United players as those outside the dressing room. On the summer tour of the US Chris Smalling did not start any of the four games so, when the manager fielded his strongest XI for the final two matches, the defender was a substitute.
United beat Club América 1-0, San Jose Earthquakes 3-1, Barcelona 3-1 and lost to Paris Saint-Germain 2-0, and Smalling was in the second string that made its entrance at half-time or later. Van Gaal’s preference is for a right-foot, left-foot combination in central defence and Phil Jones was repeatedly partnered with Daley Blind.
The manager had made his decision for the season. Jones was his first-choice at right centre-back and Smalling was the No2. Yet by mid-October no one had played more for United than Smalling, Van Gaal was describing him as a future United captain and it was Jones who was fighting to establish himself.
In part Smalling, 26 in November has benefited from Jones’s ill luck in suffering a mild thrombosis that kept him out of the start of the campaign and stopped him returning until late September.
A greater factor, though, is Van Gaal’s mercurial management style that can change a player’s status from reserve to leader-in-waiting in two months.
At the base of Van Gaal’s new-found admiration is Smalling’s form, of course. It moved Wayne Rooney to bill him as one of “the top three centre-halves in the world” at the weekend and Smalling to admit that his game is finally beginning to “click”.
The lad from Greenwich in south-east London was signed from Fulham by Sir Alex Ferguson in July 2010, so five years is a long time to start proving one belongs at a club such as United.
Injury has hampered Smalling as it has Jones. Since November 2010 there have been 20 separate setbacks, an average of four a year. Yet Smalling has also grown up, particularly away from the field.
Under David Moyes two seasons ago there were career-stalling lapses of judgment. In January 2014 Smalling made the front page of the Sun for dressing up as a suicide bomber in “an attempted comedy play on the popular Jägerbomb drink”, his management said, before apologising on the player’s behalf. Three months later Moyes disciplined Smalling after the player was photographed out in the early hours of a Sunday morning apparently singing and dancing.
He has since quietened down, and indicated a determination to succeed by refocusing after being sent off in last November’s derby at the Etihad Stadium, which Manchester City won 1-0, scoring after the red card.
Rooney’s view of Smalling as being in the world’s best three may be an exaggeration. Yet of his game Smalling says: “I do think it is clicking. I knew when I did get a consistent run and I could build on something I could go from height to height.
“At the moment I am getting confident and I am just looking forward to the next game, to putting down a marker and keep building.”
Van Gaal wants players who will listen and Smalling is one. “He is a very experienced manager,” the defender adds.
“He says a lot of things that I try to take on board and I think he wants you to express yourself and, when he shows a trust in you, I just want to repay it and do as well as I can.
“He has given me massive credit. When you hear such good praise, especially from Wazza and the manager, you just want to show them that it’s not words that are meaningless.”
One of Ferguson’s final pronouncements before retirement in April 2013 was that Jones could be the finest footballer in the club’s history.
For now all Jones wants is to stay injury free to give him the best chance of emulating the rise of Smalling. “A million per cent, it’s what I need – a run of games,” Jones, 23, says.
“The more you play, the more confident you get. I think Chris has been terrific this season and hopefully we can cement a partnership together.”
