{"id":338404,"date":"2017-07-21T17:07:41","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T17:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=338404"},"modified":"2017-07-21T17:07:41","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T17:07:41","slug":"citi-sports-editors-tweet-sparks-global-discussion-after-smalling-gaffe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=338404","title":{"rendered":"Citi Sports Editor&#8217;s tweet sparks global discussion after Smalling gaffe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Defender Chris Smalling has been an extremely polarising figure with fans of Manchester United since he first made an appearance for the club.<\/p>\n<p>The player endured a particularly testing season in the last campaign, questioned for repeated defensive mishaps and poor decisions.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the anticipation that he would be shipped out this summer, Smalling joined the squad for pre-season in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>However, any hopes that he would prove naysayers wrong went out of the window in the 2-0 win against Manchester City on Friday morning.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-72409\" src=\"http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Smalling2.jpg\" alt=\"smalling2\" width=\"634\" height=\"360\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A long ball over the top from Man City appeared comfortable for Smalling who was running back towards his goal but with Sergio Aguero chasing him down a little nonchalantly, the defender contrived to miss his header, resulting in a comical fall on the edge of the box.<\/p>\n<p>With Aguero sensing an opportunity to run onto the mistake, it took a cool-headed, David De Gea to get the ball clear and save Smalling&#8217;s blushes.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-72410\" src=\"http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Smalling3.jpg\" alt=\"smalling3\" width=\"634\" height=\"358\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It was all a bit too much for <strong>Citi Sports <\/strong>editor Nathan Quao, who took to Twitter to espouse his views about the defender.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I see that Chris Smalling was up to his old tricks again.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Nathan Quao (@nathan_quao) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nathan_quao\/status\/888324891124125696\">July 21, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>His tweet was picked up by the Daily Mail after it\u00a0sparked a discussion about whether Smalling deserved to be at the club.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-72412\" src=\"http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/MailOnline-e1500639125469.jpg\" alt=\"mailonline\" width=\"602\" height=\"739\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t all bad for Smalling as he made a decent double block to help maintain United&#8217;s clean sheet.<\/p>\n<p>However, his propensity for errors in games could be a worry for Man United fans who expect their side to provide a stronger title challenge next season.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-338404-1\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Smallingheader.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Smallingheader.mp4\">http:\/\/sport.citifmonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Smallingheader.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Edwin Kwakofi\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<br \/>\n<a class=\"twitter-follow-button\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EdKwakofi\" data-show-count=\"false\">Follow @EdKwakofi<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Defender Chris Smalling has been an extremely polarising figure with fans of Manchester United since he first made an appearance for the club. The player endured a particularly testing season in the last campaign, questioned for repeated defensive mishaps and poor decisions. Despite the anticipation that he would be shipped out this summer, Smalling joined [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142],"tags":[9553,974,104,1096],"class_list":["post-338404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","tag-chris-smalling","tag-manchester-city","tag-manchester-united","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=338404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338404\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=338404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=338404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=338404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}