Manchester United defender approaches key milestone for club!

A few of Manchester United’s players are approaching memorable numbers with regards to their appearances for the club and after running through the goalkeeper’s stats last time out, it’s now time to turn our attention towards the defenders.

Many of Manchester United’s longest-serving players have formed part of the defensive unit over the past decade. In fact, the four players who have been in the first team for the most time are Chris Smalling (2010), Phil Jones, Ashley Young and David de Gea (all 2011).

Despite signing a season later than Smalling, De Gea has the most appearances for the club. This is partly due to De Gea being a goalkeeper and starting almost every game since arriving in 2011, but also because of Smalling’s unfortunate history with injuries.

The former Fulham man can count himself lucky compared to colleague Jones though. His English centre-half partner has over 100 appearances less due to similar bad luck.

Smalling currently has 323 club appearances and will need to play 27 more times next season in order to hit 350, a number which given his reliability over the past few years he should reach comfortably.

Jones is 34 away from 250 appearances for United, a number which really does demonstrate the issues with injuries. Depending on whether Ole Gunnar Solskjaer looks to bring in another centre-back, may determine if Jones hits the mark.

Ashley Young, like Jones and De Gea also signed in the summer of 2011, has 244 appearances. He will no doubt make it up to 250 but will fall just short of the triple century unless he is an ever-present in a United side which would have to go a long way in all three cup competitions.

Injuries have affected Young too. 80 of his 244 games for the first-team have come in the last two seasons, which is a staggering 33% of matches over an eight-year period.

What about the youngsters and newbies?

Victor Lindelof and Eric Bailly will both be relatively happy with their 2019/20 campaigns if they can reach their century. Lindelof, who signed in 2017, has played 69 times for the club with the majority of last season’s performances gaining high praise from the Old Trafford faithful.

Speculation surrounds Matteo Darmian‘s future, however, he is only eight short of a century of matches for United.

Someone who has just passed that landmark his Luke Shaw (106). The England international will have to play almost every fixture to reach 150, but I’d imagine Shaw will just be keen on ensuring his level of performance remains high after winning the Sir Matt Busby Player of the Year award in May.

Marcos Rojo (113) is another man who could hit 150, although given his recent injury history I suspect it’s unlikely.

Diogo Dalot (23) and Timothy Fosu-Mensah (21) are both almost halfway to a half-century. I suspect the Portuguese youngster stands a better chance given his involvement in a number of positions last season.