English Premier League: Smalling ready to make it big at Manchester United
Smalling is the youngest recent arrival at the theater of dreams in Manchester. The English U-21 national is still an unknown quantity and was playing League division one football just two years ago. But now, he finds himself playing for the biggest football club in the world. Chris Smalling is the perfect footballing story if there was any.
In January 2010, after he had just made three premier league appearances for Fulham F.C, Manchester United and Arsenal both approached the youngster for his services. Chris made his decision pretty quickly and joined Manchester United. For the rest of the Premier League season from January to May while Smalling stayed at Fulham and came to his new club in June.
Smalling’s idol Rio Ferdinand plays for United in central defense. Chris has modeled his game around Ferdinand’s style of play and considers himself a ball playing defender rather than a long ball hoofing typical lower league defender.
The young English footballer is currently with Manchester United on their pre-season tour of Canada, U.S.A and Mexico. It has been a terrific experience for Smalling, who has suffered something of a cultural shock at United and is being helped by fellow members of the squad like Wes Brown and Jonathan Evans so that he can settle into the club.
Smalling commented on the amount of expectations related to him at United. He said that, people expect him to hit the ground running. Chris added that, he is looking to get as many games as he can in the pre-season tour and then work towards performing in upcoming season’s competitive fixtures as well.
The young Englishman also revealed that Fergie had told him that he is not supposed to act like a youngster from some other club because Smalling has had around about six months since January to prepare for his switch to United.
The 20 year old defender remarked that, playing for United does sink in after wearing the famous red shirt. He also expressed his excitement at being a part of Manchester United and their tour to U.S.A. United are scheduled to play their next game in Kansas, U.S.A.
Smalling further said that during his time at Maidstone United, players used to play even lower ranked teams than themselves during the pre-season. He said that there were no high profile tours to foreign countries and no chartered planes to transport the squad as well.
The main reason behind United’s approach for Smalling was Rio Ferdinand’s declining fitness level. Smalling’s similar appearance and style to Ferdinand has prompted many people to draw comparisons between the two.
Evans, another young defender at the club is also growing as a footballer and Ferguson’s plans for the future to deploy Chris and Evans in the center of United’s defense seem to be working well for now. Talking about his childhood, Smalling said that he used to watch a lot of Tony Adams in his youth and recently he has been observing Rio Ferdinand’s rise to a top class defender.
Smalling will be looking to get into United’s starting lineup as soon as possible. One can expect him to start against Kansas City Wizards on 25th of July, 2010.
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