Tottenham can’t turn to Chris Smalling for defensive cover

It is clear that Tottenham need to recruit another centre-back this summer, but Manchester United’s Chris Smalling is not that player.

Jan Vertonghen, Toby Alderweireld and Eric Dier bear a heavy load for Tottenham week in and week out. With Kevin Wimmer apparently on the outs and Cameron Carter-Vickers not yet ready for prime time, a four man is absolutely needed for next season.

Rumors linking Spurs to Hull City’s Harry Maguire and Borussia Dortmund’s Matthais Ginter therefore make much more sense then the much more frequent whispers about another attacking midfielder.

Those players make plenty of sense. Maguire was the best part of Hull’s failed return to the Premier League, and Ginter is well-versed in the kind of pressing and build up game Mauricio Pochettino favors.

By the same metrics, then, Smalling should also qualify. That certainly must be the reasoning behind the Sun’s recent rumors linking the England international with Spurs.

The 27-year-old has nothing but Premier League experience, after all, and plays for the second strongest defense in England after Tottenham’s. So why shouldn’t Pochettino want him?

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Smalling’s resume is padded by the fact that he’s played for a United side that, above almost everything else, has favored defense over the last three seasons. Both Louis Van Gaal and Jose Mourinho built their teams around keeping things tight at the back.

Without doubt Smalling helps in that regard, but his efforts and talent don’t exist in isolation. He’s given all the support he needs to look more exceptional than he might actually be.

Spurs’ centre-backs, in contrast, are more individually talented. They work as a unit, yes, but Pochettino doesn’t need to buttress their efforts. Alderweireld and Vertonghen in particular are individually talented enough to carry the whole of the defensive responsibility in most matches, thereby allowing the rest of the team to participate higher up the pitch.

On what evidence we have, Smalling could not be trusted with the same level of responsibility. Perhaps he’s got a passing game that approaches that of Spurs’ centre-backs, but he’s a liability when caught on possession — or when trying to retrieve it himself.

Smalling doesn’t possess the best timing or judgement compared to many players who feature at centre-back. In 35 Premier League appearances in 2015/16, he committed a foul 47 times, earning eight yellow cards in the process. Vertonghen and Alderweireld committed just 26 fouls between them in the same season, with the latter only being responsible for nine total.

One of Pochettinio’s greatest successes at Spurs is excising those kinds of mistakes out of the defense. He brought in Alderweireld in large part because he provided such a steady hand — er, foot — in defense, and sold half a dozen players for failing to meet the same standards.

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There’s no reason, then, to re-introduce such chaos into the defense, even if Smalling might be reasonably talented otherwise.