Alas poor Carrick...WTF has happened?

adexkola said:
Wait... he's not in the squad?!!?!

And there I was arguing he wasn't picked in earlier years because of his form :o
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Yep. As I said though England has been a joke for a long time. They either go for big names or they just bring in a load or young players to make them look different safe if the knowledge that if they fail they can blame it on inexperience.
 
Ash_G said:
Absolute joke that he's not in the squad but completely expected. Once again England showing how clueless they are. Any other country and a player of carricks type and ability not to mention form would be one of the automatics in the squad.
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Forget the place in the squad, any other team but England and he would be starting.
 
We really don't have anyone in the side capable of doing what he does. Javi Martinez seems a pretty close match, I'm looking forward to watching him in the Bilbao ties.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
Scholes? Giggs?
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But with Fletcher out, if carrick can't play we have no one who can offer genuine defensive cover. Having said that Scholes/Giggs will make a difference, a lot of the problems come from our players rushing, these guys know how to control the tempo of a game. I reckon if we have to play without carrick we should consider going to a 3 for those games, unless the opposition is poor.
 
adexkola said:
Seeing we can't fecking use them as they are all 'resting', how about we get someone to cover instead of Park?
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Anderson? Fletcher? Can't foresee such injuries and we will hopefully still have Pogba waiting in the wings, no point buying someone for cover.
 
Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber said:
Agreed. On current form he and Parker should be certfied starters.
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Well i for one, (selfishly i admit) am glad Carrick isn't involved. He is the one player we cannot afford to lose. We have absolutely no effective cover for his role, and yet again tonight we saw how vulnerable we look without him.

Let's just pray he doesn't get injured between now and the end of the season, we do not have a particularly encouraging record when he isn't in the side.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
Anderson? Fletcher? Can't foresee such injuries and we will hopefully still have Pogba waiting in the wings, no point buying someone for cover.
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We do need cover for Carrick AC. It is by far the weakest part of our team.

If we strengthen anywhere in the summer in my view it needs to be there. There is not one single player in our squad who can fulfill Carrick's role anywhere near effectively. We don't even have anyone who can play a more combative DM role with any composure or discipline.
 
apotheosis said:
We do need cover for Carrick AC. It is by far the weakest part of our team.

If we strengthen anywhere in the summer in my view it needs to be there. There is not one single player in our squad who can fulfill Carrick's role anywhere near effectively. We don't even have anyone who can play a more combative DM role with any composure or discipline.
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I guess, kind of hoped Pogba would be blooded in such a role but it's a risk and it also seems unlikely he'll still be here.
 
Pexbo said:
We'll have to disagree on this one.

He finally had a midfielder to play with after playing with Knackered Knees Keane, O'Shea, Smith and a young (and not particularly good) Fletcher for the previous 3 seasons.

If you think Scholes sudden burst of form in that season was down to him "rediscovering his touch" and not having a midfielder who could cover space, find space, offer himself to pass to and find Scholes with his passing while letting Scholes run the show.... you're crazy.
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It wasn't just Scholes he found with his passing. I have the DVD from that year, and the amount of time he plays the ball from the half way line into the feet of our strikers around the edge of the box is in my view one of the main reasons we won the title that year. We simply didn't have that the year before and our strikers had much less impact as a result. Obviously Scholes was superb as well, but i feel Carrick's impact on how effective we were offensively, seemed to fall a bit under the radar.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
I guess, kind of hoped Pogba would be blooded in such a role but it's a risk and it also seems unlikely he'll still be here.
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I think jones could probably do a job there too, but he will have to be played a lot more next to Carrick, which was encouraging but all too brief earlier in the season, before he is ready for that type of responsibility.

At a club like ours it is not a youngsters position really. You need great positioning and anticipation, composure and discipline, not really traits found in too many 20yr olds with so little experience.

The lack of cover there is my biggest concern regarding our squad, because i feel an injury to Carrick would be the single most detrimental blow to the overall effectiveness of our team. Anywhere else and we can cover it adequately, even Vidic and Rooney. Not Carrick though.

He is currently undroppable and absolutely irreplaceable.
 
kietotheworld said:
The performance tonight illustrated how dependent we've become on him.
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Defintely. It was (another) 90 minute advertisement for what should be our biggest priority in the Summer. A deep(ish) lying midfielder player who can defend and use the ball well. They don't grow on trees but we need to find one because it just becomes embarrassing when Carrick isn't in there.

If you're going to play two wingers and two forwards then it's not exactly rocket science to know that at least one of your two central midfielders has to be very good when the opposition have the ball.
 
GCHQ said:
That isn't Pogba's game at all. We'd be out of the Europa League if we'd started him along side Cleverley last night.
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Well it's the role he played in FAYC last year but yes he hasn't really played there this year.
 
GCHQ said:
Defintely. It was (another) 90 minute advertisement for what should be our biggest priority in the Summer. A deep(ish) lying midfielder player who can defend and use the ball well. They don't grown on trees but we need to find one because it just becomes embarrassing when Carrick isn't in there.

If you're going to play two wingers and two forwards then it's not exactly rocket science to know that at least one of your two central midfielders has to be very good when the opposition have the ball.
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Completely agree and now we are through to play Bilbao, SAF will get an opportunity to be impressed by Javi Martinez, who might just be the type of player who would fit the bill.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
Anderson? Fletcher? Can't foresee such injuries and we will hopefully still have Pogba waiting in the wings, no point buying someone for cover.
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If you're suggesting Anderson and Pogba are potential solutions to the problem then you just don't ''get it'' I'm afraid. It's not really something Fletcher excels at either but he'd be an awful lot more competent than the other two you mentioned. Fletcher's illness makes it even more obvious that an alternative to Carrick is our greatest need. I thought with Hargreaves finally leaving the club last Summer that we'd go out and find someone. It's almost as if Fergie has forgotten that this type of player is absolutely crucial to your chances of succeeding in Europe and I don't really like his comments suggesting that the inexperienced back line was the main reason for our problems against Ajax.
 
apotheosis said:
Well i for one, (selfishly i admit) am glad Carrick isn't involved. He is the one player we cannot afford to lose. We have absolutely no effective cover for his role, and yet again tonight we saw how vulnerable we look without him.

Let's just pray he doesn't get injured between now and the end of the season, we do not have a particularly encouraging record when he isn't in the side.
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Without Carrick in the premier league 8-2-1. Carrick in the side 10-2-2. Goals conceded in matches he has started in premier league 13 in 14 games, compared with 12 conceded in 11 matches he didn't start. Worth pointing out that he didn't feature in the City game and that he was used in centre defence in the Blackburn game.

In CL Carrick started in both the 3-3 against Basel and the 2-2 v Benfica. He missed the 1-2 v Basel.

Having said all that, I've been very impressed by his performances this season. But I'm not convinced we are necessarily worse when we have say Cleverley + Anderson in central midfield. We are just different. More likely to score, more likely to concede.
 
kundalini said:
Without Carrick in the premier league 8-2-1. Carrick in the side 10-2-2. Goals conceded in matches he has started in premier league 13 in 14 games, compared with 12 conceded in 11 matches he didn't start. Worth pointing out that he didn't feature in the City game and that he was used in centre defence in the Blackburn game.

In CL Carrick started in both the 3-3 against Basel and the 2-2 v Benfica. He missed the 1-2 v Basel.

Having said all that, I've been very impressed by his performances this season. But I'm not convinced we are necessarily worse when we have say Cleverley + Anderson in central midfield. We are just different. More likely to score, more likely to concede.
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Stats meh! They may not completely prove my point, and while i don't altogether dismiss them, they never tell the whole story. For me when he doesn't play, the defence looks all over the place at the back. Players being dragged out of position left right and centre. Ajax was symptomatic of how vulnerable we are without the cover he brings, had they been better in the final third with passing, shooting etc we would have been out. No question.

They were getting past our midfield at will last night. It's not the first time and while Carrick is not infallible, imo he is vital to our team's effectiveness.

I would be interested to review those stats of games with and without Carrick, excluding the Cleverley and Ando partnership at the start of the season. I know it's being a little selective on my part, but for me that would be a much truer reflection of our overall team form on average.

Saying that Brwned informed me we conceded on average 19 shots on goal per game, in those games Clev and Ando were our central pairing, so we also appeared to get lucky on more than a few occasions.
 
Not picking players like Carrick is the main reason why England will not even be close to winning any international tournaments.Players like him are key to the balance of teams.
 
I've said all along that a player of a similar mould/posittion to him is what we need. Cleverly and Anderson have the talent but they're very different players, Pogba is too young for such a demanding role. We need a Modric or Martinez, forget Sneijder.
 
kietotheworld said:
The performance tonight illustrated how dependent we've become on him.
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Well, yeah, but what do you expect when we play Park and Cleverley as our central midfield? We've just planned really shoddily by having ONE holding midfielder in our squad. Two, if Jones is to be counted (and he shouldn't). We've forced ourselves to become overdependent on Carrick. Shouldn't be the case at all.
 
Of all the omissions from England's squad to play Holland, that of Michael Carrick is perhaps the most baffling.

While much has rightly been made of the enduring influence of Ryan Giggs and the positive impact Paul Scholes has had on Manchester United since coming out of retirement, Carrick has excelled this season and gone about his business with the minimum of fuss.

He has been United's best player this season, a vastly underrated member of Sir Alex Ferguson's squad whose effectiveness is often only acknowledged when he is not in the side.

With an average pass completion rate of 90 per cent this season and having made more interceptions that any other United player, Carrick is arguably the reason they are just two points behind Manchester City.

He doesn't score spectacular goals, he doesn't have blistering pace and he rarely beats opponents, with the exception of his fine solo strike in United's 2-0 win at Queen's Park Rangers in December, when he ran past four players before scoring.

But Carrick's great skill is doing the simple things with calm eloquence, his technique, passing ability and positional awareness providing the platform for those around him to cause damage to opposing teams.

If he were a few inches shorter and had a Spanish name, Carrick would probably be lauded as one of the finest midfield playmakers in the world. As it is, he cannot even get a call-up for his own country.

He has also shown his versatility by filling in at centre-back for United this season and in previous campaigns. And it is a measure of Carrick's importance to United that Patrice Evra is the only player to have featured more times for them since the 30-year-old made his £16million move from Tottenham in 2006.

Since then, Carrick has made 259 appearances and established himself as one of United's most reliable players. Yet still the cultured midfielder is viewed as surplus to requirements when it comes to England.

Yet England's loss is United's gain, and while Carrick must wonder what more he must do to force his way into the England squad, there will be no complaints coming out of Old Trafford over his omission.

With 12 games to go in the title tussle with Manchester City and a potential further seven in the Europa League, a rest for Carrick this week will be welcomed by Ferguson as better than the burden of an extra match at such a crucial stage of the season when recovery time is vital.

Injured at the start of the season, it is no coincidence United's form picked up when Carrick regained full fitness. Since making his return in the 1-0 win at Swansea back in November, Carrick has missed just one game of significance for United, having been rested for the Carling Cup exit to Crystal Palace and the Europa League second leg tie against Ajax, with United already leading 2-0.

That game was the 2-1 defeat in Basel which saw United exit the Champions League. Carrick was suspended that night and it is tempting to wonder whether his calm presence in midfield may have ensured a different outcome and helped United avoid tumbling into the Europa League.

At the start of the season, United's failure to address the retirement of Paul Scholes by signing a central midfielder looked to have left them too light in such a crucial area, even more so with injuries to Anderson and Tom Cleverley, and illness forcing Darren Fletcher to miss the rest of the campaign.

But Carrick's towering midfield performances this season have kept United on track in the Premier League in their pursuit of Manchester City.

England caretaker boss Stuart Pearce may not rate Carrick in the top 10 midfielders in the country, but his worth is not in question at Old Trafford.
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Manchester United column: Forget Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney - Michael Carrick has been United's best player this season, so why can't he get in the England squad? By David McDonnell - David McDonnell - MirrorFootball.co.uk

Excellent article by David McDonell of Mirror, really good to see that a journo actually bother watching some matches of the team which they're supposed to be covering rather than just sprouting rubbish. Still baffled why he didn't get a place in the English Place.
 
I don't understand how can anyone rate Carrick this less. I mean surely even a city fan will acknowledge that Carrick is good enough to atleast make the English squad(not even first XI) which is already missing some players. It just can't be that, surely no one can be that foolish.
 
Ash_G said:
But with Fletcher out, if carrick can't play we have no one who can offer genuine defensive cover. Having said that Scholes/Giggs will make a difference, a lot of the problems come from our players rushing, these guys know how to control the tempo of a game. I reckon if we have to play without carrick we should consider going to a 3 for those games, unless the opposition is poor.
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Fletcher never offered genuine defensive cover either. We dont have anyone to play Carrick's role well when hes missing.

But spot on about the 3 in midfield when we dont have Carrick. And no central Park please.
 
Ash_G said:
But with Fletcher out, if carrick can't play we have no one who can offer genuine defensive cover. Having said that Scholes/Giggs will make a difference, a lot of the problems come from our players rushing, these guys know how to control the tempo of a game. I reckon if we have to play without carrick we should consider going to a 3 for those games, unless the opposition is poor.
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Spot on Ash, that's a definite for me. We look so vulnerable without Carrick, and his potential replacements such as Park or Jones, are nowhere near effective enough on their own as the most defensive player in a 2.
 
KM said:
Manchester United column: Forget Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney - Michael Carrick has been United's best player this season, so why can't he get in the England squad? By David McDonnell - David McDonnell - MirrorFootball.co.uk

Excellent article by David McDonell of Mirror, really good to see that a journo actually bother watching some matches of the team which they're supposed to be covering rather than just sprouting rubbish. Still baffled why he didn't get a place in the English Place.
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Slightly overkill article, but agree with the principle.
 
Has been far better this season and should be in the England squad.
 
He's been out of favour since he played in the Charity Shield a few seasons back even though he pulled out of an England friendly which was a few days later I think. That must have put him in Capello's bad books and it is likely to have carried over to Pearce too.



I'm not fussed anyway, as long as he does the job for us.
 
Can anyone provide a decent stat comparison between Carrick and Barry please?

Usual stuff of tackles, interceptions, passes, completion %, etc?
 
Brosstan said:
Fletcher never offered genuine defensive cover either. We dont have anyone to play Carrick's role well when hes missing.

But spot on about the 3 in midfield when we dont have Carrick. And no central Park please.
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Fletch definitely adds defensive cover, he's not as good as carrick but he's better than most. Look up hansons little video he did on him on motd against city a few years back. As far as central midfielders go fletch is defensively sound. Think Scotland played him as a defensive midfielder against Spain recently and he did well. He's not a defensive midfielder but he can defend. Carrick and fletcher as a combo is as solid a midfield combo you're likely to see. And fletch more than pulls his weight there.

If fletcher were around and back to fitness he could do the defensive work if asked. It's not his best position but he can still do it. I do think though that in January knowing that fletcher was unlikely to play again this season that we should have brought in a proper centre mid. Pogba clearly isn't ready yet and we've only got carrick as a genuine defensive option in the middle. Tbh I think given the severity of fletchers condition the club should never had sold oshea. He's not great in the middle but he's effective.
 
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