Smith rough and ready
By Tony Cascarino
IT’S TERRIBLY difficult making your debut in a makeshift team, but Alan Smith can be quietly satisfied with his first league appearance for Manchester United. Sure, it was frustrating, chasing, harrying and linking up, with few sniffs of any decent goalscoring opportunities. It was an enthusiastic, if unremarkable, performance that showed that once United’s injured players return, he could prove a valuable orchestrator of the play.
A scrappy game was never going to suit him — or any of the other forwards on show — finding space to unlock Chelsea. He began brightly, but progressively found it harder to find space and get involved — when Chelsea dropped ten men behind the ball in the second half — and eventually petered out. Smith is now experienced enough to know that he should have searched out and demanded the ball, rather than letting the game go on around him. Playing up front alone is a tough role to perform. He held the ball up well, won headers against John Terry and linked with the midfield, but without any blistering pace in the team, he found it difficult to bring any runners into the game.
If there is a criticism of him, it is that he doesn’t score enough goals. That was borne out when he should have done better with two headers, from a Ryan Giggs cross in the first half, and later attacking the far post. A more prolific forward would have headed low and powerfully. Smith probably will not get an easier time until Ruud van Nistelrooy and Louis Saha return from injury, because until then the onus will be on him to create chances and score goals. That may be all right at Old Trafford, where teams have tended to cave in, but it will be testing away from home. And Smith probably needs to play with another forward to look a better player himself.
Van Nistelrooy should appreciate the partnership with Smith, an ideal foil for the Holland forward because he will take some of the weight off his shoulders by dropping off and playing as a target man, holding the ball up, being buffeted by defenders, and linking up with the midfield. That should allow Van Nistelrooy to stay more central and concentrate on what he does best, scoring. Even when Ferguson has his full complement of forwards available, I expect Smith to muscle his way into the starting line-up alongside Van Nistelrooy. Partnerships — and I like that one — make teams and Ferguson’s has endured several years of tinkering to find natural successors to the two pairs of forwards — Yorke-Cole and Sheringham-Solskjaer — who helped them to win the European Cup in 1999.
There is more to come from Saha, who maybe could work with Smith, but Diego Forlán has been inconsistent. Forlán maybe is one of those forwards that history has shown struggle to replicate their form on the bigger stage at Old Trafford. Gary Birtles and Alan Brazil were two examples, though I don’t foresee Smith suffering from stage fright. In crossing the Pennines, he has already shown that he has the attributes to handle the pressure.
Smith’s goalscoring was hardly impressive at Leeds United, where it could be argued that people noticed far less than they will at Old Trafford. So it will be interesting to see how he reacts if he goes through a barren spell. He’s not a 20-goal forward, but with the amount of chances United create, and the quality of players he is playing with, he will have little excuse for not scoring between ten and 15 goals a season. Smith’s inclusion in the squad for the England match against Ukraine is belated. His performance against Portugal two years ago, when he set the tempo for much of England’s play, should have seen him cement a regular place, had his ill-discipline not got the better of him against Macedonia. Sir Alex Ferguson will welcome and admire that abrasive edge that has been a thorn in his disciplinary record because the United manager will appreciate they are similar virtues to that of Roy Keane. Smith’s approach appears similar to Keane’s, growling and snarling at his team-mates to pick their game up, which may be partly why the United fans have already taken to him.
( The Times )
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