Manchester United’s Chris Smalling certainly isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. Sir Alex Ferguson saw enough in the defender to throw £12million at former club Fulham in January 2010 after just league 13 games for the west London outfit, but his progress since has been spasmodic at best.
Despite regularly representing the England national team – 15 caps to date – and the biggest club in the Premier League, the 25 year-old’s often lacked the quality and composure of a top class defender – although there have been promising performances here and there.
According to yesterday’s edition of the Manchester Evening News however, Louis van Gaal is a big fan of the centre-half-come-right-back, and will resultantly reject any advances from rumoured suitors Arsenal this summer.
The Gunners have been liked with Smalling before – a swap deal for former Arsenal skipper Thomas Vermaelen was hotly speculated last summer, until his £15million move to Barcelona – and MEN claim Arsene Wenger wants to revive his interest at the end of the campaign.
LVG however, impressed with the defender’s form during integral wins over Tottenham and Liverpool, is now set to turn down an alleged £12million offer.
He also praised the performances of United’s defenders this season, refuting the criticism they often receive in the tabloids; “When you read the papers back from the beginning and you have seen the criticism on our defenders and now we are the third in the Premier League table in conceding goals and we never have had compliments because of that never.
“These are the same defenders I had at the beginning of the season. You can turn it round and upside down, but it is the same defenders.”