Chris Smalling back in north west as 36-year-old searches for new club after long career
Chris Smalling, the 36-year-old defender who won 31 England caps, has returned to the north west of England to consider his next club, he said in a 45-minute interview published on 6 August 2026. The former Manchester United and Roma centre-back said he remains focused on playing even as he prepares for life after football.
Smalling outlined a career that moved him from non-league Maidstone to a Champions League final in the space of three years and has produced 580 club appearances in three countries, with the majority of those matches under Sir Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho, plus trophies with Manchester United and Roma. He said he has plans for life after playing but that, for now, finding a new club is his priority. "I know my body now better than when I was 26 and that's shown in the games I'm playing," he added, and described how longevity now relies on recovery, diet, supplements and even genetics testing recommended in pre-season.
Last season Smalling was ever-present for Al-Fayha in the Saudi Pro-League, a fact he said he is particularly proud of, and he insisted his career is not over. He also described contributing off the field at Al-Fayha by ensuring the gym met the standards an elite modern-day player demands.
He recounted his unexpected rise from non-league football: while playing at Maidstone he had planned to go to university to study financial economics and already had his A levels, but late in the summer he received an offer from Fulham after Roy Hodgson watched one practice game and called him into his office to offer a contract. "It wasn't even a full week," Smalling said, describing his shock at the sudden change in plans.
Smalling said Fulham travelled to Blackburn for a Premier League match on 17 January, 2010, but he did not play in the 2-0 defeat; the pivotal moment came the previous evening when Hodgson told him Fulham had accepted a bid and that Sir Alex Ferguson would arrive at the hotel in 45 minutes. "I called my mum first but then I was sitting in the room thinking it was going to be a bit awkward and what questions could I can ask him?" he recalled. "Literally, we were there for about at least a couple of hours. He was so calming and reassuring." Smalling quoted Ferguson as saying, "He told me I would get a chance and he believed in me."
On his relationship with Jose Mourinho, Smalling rejected a one-dimensional public narrative and said the Portuguese manager picked him for most games at United and Roma because they had a good relationship and Mourinho trusted him: "For United or Roma, Jose picked me for most games because we had a good relationship and he trusted me." He also described a period when he was "having injections in broken toe because he had created that mentality in me that I could do anything, even if, maybe, I shouldn't. I had reached the limit of the amount [of injections] I could have, had to stop in a warm-up and he was disappointed." "It gave me even more belief because it was easy to choose another centre-back but he wanted me," he added.
Smalling said he remains in contact with Mourinho and wished him good luck when he took over at Real Madrid this summer, but has no intention of following him into coaching: "I don't think it will be my route," he said. "I'm quite comfortable with the next stage." He is developing an education programme for young players in partnership with the Global Institute of Sport and said, "I've got three or four of these types of projects." On balancing those projects with playing he said, "Once my football career comes to an end, I can put more time to them but at the minute it's all focused on playing because I have that passion and drive and physically my stats are good."
Smalling reflected that turning down the safer university route proved worthwhile. "It would have been the safer route," he said, adding: "In that first year, I was not earning a lot of money. I was playing for the reserves and the 19th man for the first team, travelling around but not quite on the bench. There was no guarantee I was going to earn more money." He recalled his contract progression at United: "When I signed for United, it was a four-year contract. At the end of the first year, I signed a new one, another a year later and another 18 months after that. There was always this carrot. I never took anything for granted." Smalling is now based in the north west and remains focused on securing his next club while he develops his off-field projects.
