Smalling says ‘Fergie time’ is back after United stage
Ahead of the biggest week of Manchester United’s season, Chris Smalling admitted that the team were “in awe” of Juventus during the first half of their recent defeat by the Italian side – but feels they are rediscovering the spirit of “Fergie time” at just the right moment.
Jose Mourinho’s men needed a 90th-minute goal from Marcus Rashford to give them three points at the Vitality Stadium after again falling behind, and Smalling says that is an indication of new-found resilience.
“It’s a great feeling, and it’s bringing us closer together,” said the former Fulham defender. “It’s often coming down to fine margins – who can give that added burst in the last five minutes. We’re going to win a lot of points that way.”
United have 10 points from their past four league outings ahead of Wednesday night’s trip to Turin and the Manchester derby at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday.
“We know we’re going into a very tough week now, but we can come out with some good results. And it can be seen as a good month, considering it was probably one of our toughest months,” Smalling said.
“It would galvanise us, knowing we’ve had some big games this month, gone toe to toe and picked up some good results. We need to take the first-half performance that we had against Juventus at home and do that from the off, and we’ll give them a good game.”
Smalling, whom Sir Alex Ferguson signed from Fulham in 2010, was given the runaround by an excellent Bournemouth display in the first half an hour, before Anthony Martial levelled with his fourth goal in as many games and Rashford scored his late winner.
“No matter how bad that first half was, that second half we all believed we could go and win,” Smalling said. “The first half I thought was probably our worst first half of the season. I thought we were all