It may seem strange but having ferdinand injured I dont see as a big problem, as I want to see Smalling play more this year, I really do think this young lad is the real deal, he really is a superb player already!! However, having not seen too much of jones and doubting whether evans is anywhere near the right type of player we need, i think losing vidic may cost us. Smalling needs blooding with one of the pairing of ferdy or vidic. However knowing us we will probably be ok, hopefully jones can prove his worth in the upcoming weeks and hopefully evans will not play too much lol
I am more optimistic. Phil jones has had a fair few PL games under his belt and has been impressive, plus he and smalling developed a good partnership in the England U21s. I think they'll be fine. If anything I'm more worried about the keeper - I hope he settles down quickly because he's been generally playing well but has cost us a goal per game so far.
Phil jones will be class for us, proven PL player with excellent ability overall. Smalling just kepts getting better and better, together I believe in them but yes having a fit vidic would just give us more comfort and with Pat coming back a more soild back four. Gutted about Ralfs injurie looks like his out for a couple of months at best, thank god for Fabo. Just hope David De gear gea sorts out his head and them so called long range shoots!
I'm more worried about De Gea to be honest. I think he needs the experience of Ferdinand and Vidic to help him through the game. Hopefully Evra is back next week because I don't fancy us with a defence that has a 23 year old as the oldest player in it, especially the week after against Arsenal. Jones will probably play right back with Smalling and Evans in the middle. I think Smalling will flourish though and he looks every bit as good as Ferdinand did at his age. I just hope we can get behind them on Monday, keep hold of the ball and just blow Spurs out of sight and not worry about what they can do to us.
Our defence is injury plagued at the moment. However I'd much rather have this back 4 with relatively young inexperienced players than the patched up defence a few seasons that contained Carrick and Fletcher. Spurs may see our keeper and defence as weak at the moment but our forward line will be relishing the opportunity to test theirs.
Hopefully Spurs will not be firing on all cylinders after their cancelled game. We need to be vigilant against Pavlyuchenko`s long range shooting as the word is out that DDG is iffy on efforts from distance.The next two games are even bigger for us now that Rio and Vidic are out.I hope we can continue our excellent home record from last season.
Doesn't help that the way that we set up is generally to sit back a bit which does allow the opposition to shoot from distance. Perhaps we should employ a more pressing game just to help out but I don't see that happening. As Constcrepe eluded to above, I'd rather have 4 defenders (albeit relatively inexperienced) rather than midfielders made to play in defence. Our defenders are good enough to deal with anyone.
Two home wins. I guarantee it. United look fierce going forward and Spurs will be a bit rusty still. Arsenal's confidence is shot to pieces and I can't even see them beating Liverpool on Sunday. The real test is Bolton away on Sep 10 for me.
That's the good thing about United. To have Ferguson as a manager and say in Phil Jones' example, to have faith in you and pay £16m to bring you to his club and then believe you are good enough to stand in for our captain (Vidic). The confidence Jones will take from that will be like Smalling last season. I bet he couldn't believe he played so much last season and the confidence he had grew each game. Now he looks like he could do the job full time already.
