Manchester United Centre-Back Aiming For Consistent Finish To The Season

Manchester United centre-back Chris Smalling has insisted the club is aiming for a strong and consistent finish to the season. Smalling missed 12 games for United with a toe injury from late October to mid-December, a period in which his relationship with manager Jose Mourinho was tested. 

The England defender is focused on putting a difficult spell behind him and finishing the season as strongly as possible with United. He said “I think the more games I get the better, I am always one that would rather play than train. We are looking forward to it and obviously the last eight or nine weeks we have been getting that consistency. We can't get ahead of ourselves but if we keep up the form like this then who knows.”

United are on a run of eight successive victories in all competitions heading into Tuesday's EFL Cup semi-final first leg with Hull City.  Smalling started for just the second time since October 23 in Saturday's 4-0 win over Reading, but the defender insists he needed to spend time on the sidelines to recover from his injury and that he has the full support from Mourinho.