SMITH DEPARTS

I am afraid i could see this coming for him towards the end of last season. Looking back over his time at United i cannot really see why Ferguson bought him. He has never really seemed to fancy him as a first choice striker leading the line. Fair enough when he was purchased from Leeds, Ruud was still here and still banging them in. But although it seemed that you could have paired them together up front he rarely did.
To be honest, when he was at leeds i had always thought he was a player you would love in your squad, as he always sweated blood for the cause, but that he would never going to be good enough to get into our first team as he wasn't clinical enough in front of goal.
That's just about what we got from him in his first season, he did ok, the fans loved his in your face attitude, but he was never going to hit the heights for us.
Where i feel sorry for him, is what we did to his career in that second season. I can't imagine who thought he was going to make a holding midfield player, whoever he was had he never watched him tackle. I have just read that Allardyce has bought him as a midfield player, if that's true if i was Smith i would have chosen Everton if they had come in for him, i wouldn't advise any player to go to Middlesbrough.
I would imagine he will endear himself to the barcode faithful pretty quickly, they have had their fair share of shirkers wearing the shirt over the last few seasons, and that's what he won't do.
It looks like Saha must have been given a reprieve after last seasons shenanigans, i wouldn't put money on him being here this time next year though.
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