Manchester United will play Barcelona in the Champions League quarter-finals after being drawn against the Catalans last week.
The draw follows a dramatic last-16 encounter against Paris Saint-Germain which United won in injury time – a game in which Smalling performed exceptionally well to silence Kylian Mbappe.
The Englishman was understandably buoyed coming out of the tie, and a few days after the Red Devils pulled Barcelona out the hat a quote from the defender began to circulate online.
“There is a weakness in Messi that only I know about,” Smalling allegedly said.
“I don’t think the world is aware of that, so I’m not going to talk about it now.”
The alleged utterance made its way onto well-followed football Twitter pages but was not credited to a source.
Nine minutes after the ‘quote’ was posted on Football Daily, Smalling replied saying: “#fakequote #fakenews.”
Smalling’s reply, however, has since been deleted from his account.
Some fans pointed out that the fictional words were based on an actual line from Ryan Babel’s Times interview ahead of Fulham’s game against Liverpool last Sunday.
Asked whether countryman Virgil van Dijk has a weakness, Babel replied: “He does.
“I don’t want to say what it is. I don’t think anyone has made it aware yet.”
Babel did score in the match, but the Cottagers ended up losing 2-1.
