Manchester United’s £10m star needs to step up and replace Rio Ferdinand

The story of Chris Smalling is a heartening one in these days of pampered footballers who are discovered before they hit puberty.

As recently as 2008, while his current team were lifting the European Cup on a rainy night in Moscow, the young defender was playing semi professionally for a slightly less glamorous United, in Maidstone. Suffering from home sickness, Smalling left Middlesbrough less than a month after joining the Teeside club. He then joined Fulham before signing for Manchester United, having made just 13 appearances in the Premier League.

Eyebrows were raised at the time since Sir Alex Ferguson shelled out somewhere in the region of £10 million on a relatively unproven centre-back but the decision made more sense with every performance at the heart of United’s defence.

Smalling’s was a rise of unprecedented proportions and there was every reason to believe he would be part of England’s World Cup squad this summer were it not for a quite spectacular downturn in fortunes this campaign. He has not been helped by the fact that David Moyes has regularly been forced to field him at right-back, a position where he looks uncomfortable to say the least. Moyes is to be applauded for attempting to phase out Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic given their respective ages but there have been occasions this season where the pressure seems to have got to Smalling and Jonny Evans and they have behaved more like pretenders to the throne than heirs apparent.

The nadir for Smalling came last week when he was forced to apologise for attending a fancy dress party over Christmas in a costume that, inadvertently or otherwise, called to mind the look of a suicide bomber. Masquerading as a terrorist is one thing but United fans will be more concerned that he has looked like an imposter in a football kit at times this season. He has given the ball away seven times a game on average and won a dismal 53% of his aerial duels, most notably losing out to Emmanuel Adebayor against Spurs at Old Trafford.

Part of the blame has to lie with the new manager, as evidenced by the fact that a good deal of the misplaced passes have come attempting longer balls than Smalling has perhaps been accustomed to in years gone by. The defender would be wise to shoulder some of the responsibility for the dip in form, however. Here is a player with the ability to emulate the likes of Ferdinand and become an integral figure for club and country. Smalling will hope that one day he is able to celebrate a Champions League triumph of his own, but only if he can return to the kind of level that silenced the doubters early in his career.