How times have changed for Manchester United’s Chris Smalling.
This time last year, people would have laughed at the suggestion he would be one of United’s best performing players, third in line for the captain’s armband and living it large in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Well who’s laughing now?
The England centre-back has joined the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and Frank Lampard in the updated Guinness Book of World Records for a brace he scored for United against Burnley.
Smalling entered the book for the fastest Premier League goal by a substitute from kick-off when he opened the scoring against Sean Dyche’s side in February.
And his second effort 38 minutes later meant that he’d be in the book twice as the proud owner of the record for most goals in the Premier League scored by a substitute in the first half.
Smalling is now among the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, who himself earned a number of records this year including becoming the leading hat-trick scorer in La Liga (27) and the most followed athlete and person on both Facebook (over 100 million likes) and Twitter (over 27m followers).
New York City FC’s Frank Lampard also earned a record when he scored against former side Chelsea – the 39th different club against which he has found the net.
So there you have it, Chris Smalling absolutely smashing it in 2015.
