I don't dislike him, he's served us well. I dislike the fact that we seem to rely on him. I can understand some people calling for Fellaini because perhaps we do need a more imposing figure in our midfield, some nasty cnut who can do the dirty work when some of the opposition get too cocky.
Alas poor Carrick...WTF has happened?
- Thread starter Carl
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I don't dislike him, he's served us well. I dislike the fact that we seem to rely on him. I can understand some people calling for Fellaini because perhaps we do need a more imposing figure in our midfield, some nasty cnut who can do the dirty work when some of the opposition get too cocky.
It's easy for me to sit in my air-conditioned office and without consequence drop the gavel and say Wooten should have been given a go.
It rings to me last year when we tried to move Park around and when we had Rafael in midfield (who imo did a really good job at closing down and pressuring in midfield despite the general consensus I thought he did well) and the whole Pogba thing (and feck Pogba, don't give a rats arse about him).
United is a club for giving their youngsters the backing and the tough situations to make them into men. It shits me to see 'well we're down to playing this guy but he's there anyway and too green so we'll shuffle the deck and stick someone else there'. That shits me a little bit.
feck them off from the squad if they aren't good enough and play them like they are good enough. That could have been something special for Wooten. He could have played really well. In general I agree though there was nobody else and if the Gaff didn't think that SW was good enough then I sit back in my office and go fair enough.
I think that the fault happened in the fact that we put on paper a glaring weakness in those defensive positions. Moyes on the night might have gone 'Fellaini get out there and get at them.' I know this would have happened of Wooten was also playing but having Carrick there in his natural position might have given him some better shielding. Having a few senior players around him may have given him a lift.
I just thought it was the fact that he got at Carrick so early and then just continued on his merry way with hardly anyone doing anything which was the problem. It stemmed from Carrick's lack of balls sometimes to get in someones face and chop them and stand up for himself.
Probably just talked a big old load of shite.
Yes, but then there's a reason why Fellaini had the game of his life, and it was ostly down to us making it embarassingly easy for him. We were completely non competitive against him, so he just spent the entire game doing whatever the feck he wanted while Carrick hid in his shell. I don't get why Vidic wasn't picking him up from corners...or from everything really. It became apparent very early on he was the threat, if it wasn't already apparent before the game.
It's not really Carrick's fault. He's been asked to do a job he can't do (though he could try not being such a fecking girl from time to time). It just amazes me how poorly we seem to prepare or set up for games sometimes. It's like we think we're so amazing we can just get away with needlessly weakening ourselves, but even if that were true, what's actually the point?
You can't play someone who can't play fullback, directly next to someone who can't play centreback, unless you're playing someone who's so shite they wont be able to get the ball. I'm just completely baffled as to why this seemed like anything other than a stupid idea at any point in time.
The other thing is we've had a shocking Pre-Season preperation and organisation wise (it was as if the whole thing was organised via a bunch of last minute frantic hone calls at about 4.45 one Friday afternoon), and it kind of shone through in every area of the pitch.
Totally agree on the pre season point. Our chickens have come home to roost, really. We looked under prepared for the task.
I'm often amazed how few people understand the basics of football. This whole who should mark Fellaini stuff is just the latest in a long line of stupid discussions.
Fellaini receieved the ball most often in wide areas, up against our fullbacks. You can't expect one of our central defenders to charge around the pitch following him wherever he ends up just because he's strong in the air. We'd lose our defensive shape completely. It would be a shambles.
Fair enough, stick Vidic on him at set-pieces but anyone thinking there was any way to ensure he was competing with Fellaini for EVERY long punt upfield needs their head examined.
Fellaini receieved the ball most often in wide areas, up against our fullbacks. You can't expect one of our central defenders to charge around the pitch following him wherever he ends up just because he's strong in the air. We'd lose our defensive shape completely. It would be a shambles.
Fair enough, stick Vidic on him at set-pieces but anyone thinking there was any way to ensure he was competing with Fellaini for EVERY long punt upfield needs their head examined.
Good point noodle, playing Valencia and Carrick in the same side of the defence was risky
I don't want Carrick in defense because as a defender he's about as convincing as a transexual with a boner. He's not strong enough nor smart enough. Him and Valencia are obvious weaknesses in our defence.
Don't agree with that. Obviously you can tell he's not a natural centre half but there was a couple of occasions where he anticipated the danger very well.
They scored from a set-piece while Carrick marked Vidic.
Also, let him win the aerial duels against our fullbacks if he prefers to go wide. That's not critical, let our CB's sweep up the second balls. It's much better than him winning those balls in the box. But by God, stick Vidic on him inside the god damn box. It's not rocket science. And in terms of set-pieces? Well, that should go without saying.
It's all a moot point anyway because even when Vidic was against Fellaini he still won the ball.
The problem with saying Vidić should have been on Fellaini is that he was marking Jagielka, another aggressive attacker of the ball. Everton, all over the field, were packed with strong players: Jagielka, Distin, Fellaini and Jelavic.
Generally agreed though, it was so strange seeing Carrick on Fellaini.
Generally agreed though, it was so strange seeing Carrick on Fellaini.
This.
Vidić did well considering it was his first competitive action in ages. He'll get much stronger and we'll benefit from having him in the side.
Fellaini won't have it so easy at OT.
maybe but he's not a central defender. Teams know it. Vidic only came up against him a few times but he did win a duel or two. If you can't win the ball, you have to put the player off and I don't think Carrick is cute enough or knows how to make it uncomfortable for players in that situation.
Don't think this was the case at all, certainly not the aerial contests. Vidic and Carrick simply needed to make a 20 yard switch and pass their respective men on for most of those deliveries. How that would precipitate a defensive shambles (sorry, more of a defensive shambles), I don't know. If there's an obvious problem area, you expect players of our lads experience to be able to react. How we let it continue that long is beyond me. If my U16 school team were being exposed like that, I'd have done something about it. Hell, THEY'D have done something about it. Centre halves switching sides is hardly a radical move.
He has no problem with reading the game at all. However, he simply cannot defend crossed balls. He was exposed at this on the tour and again last night. I am not criticising Carrick because he isn't a defender, but lets not kid ourselves that he is. Fact of the matter is, having 4/5 centre backs injured on the opening day of the season is unacceptable, it isn't even a freak occurance either.
Aye, there's that too. To be expected after missing almost an entire season.
It's also to be expected that we would struggle when a player who was as rusty as Vidic was the only one of our four specialist central defenders available for selection. Up against a man mountain of a player having the game of his life.
But hey, let's all pretend that if only we'd been able to pick the team and tactics it would have all turned out differently. We're good at that.
We don't have the players - just have to get on with it.
Admittedly I only watched the second half but he seemed to be constantly coming deep(ish) and wide to receive the ball. If vidic had tried to man-mark him it would have been a disaster. A simple flick-on and there's massive gaps in our defence for them to exploit. Anyway, as others have pointed out, Vidic was getting beasted too.
Fellaini was close to unplayable last night but the best we could hope for was to try and get tight and stop him doing anything useful when he did get the ball. Which was going to happen no matter what we did.
We could have pressed high and stopped the ball coming into Fellaini so easily.
Fair enough. Unplayable is an overused word but appropriate for the wooly one last night. Second balls probably more damaging to us.
Who got tight? Fellani is 6'4 1/2, so he is right at the top end of player height but that doesn't mean our midfielder's shouldn't harry him. Do you not think that we need a player who can come close to competing physically with players like Yaya Toure and Fellani?
You can't have Vidic man marking him but we could have got somebody to stand on Fellaini's toes to at least try and prevent him chesting everything down. Don't mind him winning flick ons 40 yards from goal, but taking it down and laying it off so frequently was taking the absolute piss. Schoolboy stuff when it goes on for 92 minutes
Yeah, crazy to put a centre back man marking him, well unless you went with 5 at the back, whole point was that he was moving around to pull on to the weaker guys in the air. That's why you need a midfielder who will either stick on him or to help organize the others to plus the holes. Not sure but swear we did a similar thing with Crouch in the past, make sure we win the second ball. Either way this is where we needed the midfield to help the defence and I think we would have needed that with 2 real defenders in the team.
Yes. I've been saying that all summer. I want us to sign a CM with some bite and physical presence. Someone who can replace what Hargreaves and Fletcher brought to the team when they were at their best (this is assuming Fletcher won't ever get back to his best - which I think is unfortunately likely)
@Ash.
Exactly. It's not even about playing with a "destroyer" in the team either for me, though we haven't been scared to do that on occasions in the past (arsenal). It's just about getting to him quicker. Even if you stop half of what he did last night we'd be getting somewhere. Scholes and Cleverley seems a completely meaningless partnership. Anderson is surely able to do that pretty effectively if needed, he's shown he can break play up in the past.
The only surprise was Scholes didn't go for a late reducer on him, that's exactly the kind of game he goes mental in. Or just handball it
Exactly. It's not even about playing with a "destroyer" in the team either for me, though we haven't been scared to do that on occasions in the past (arsenal). It's just about getting to him quicker. Even if you stop half of what he did last night we'd be getting somewhere. Scholes and Cleverley seems a completely meaningless partnership. Anderson is surely able to do that pretty effectively if needed, he's shown he can break play up in the past.
The only surprise was Scholes didn't go for a late reducer on him, that's exactly the kind of game he goes mental in. Or just handball it
I've said it for two fecking years! It's so blatant, last night made it even more so yet time and time again we do nothing about it. And the thing is, for all the youth we have in the midfield, we have nobody who resembles this sort of players, apart from maybe Jones, who is basically Fletcher without any positional awareness at all.
Yeah, tbh I don't even think they have to be particularly aggressive, but just have both the knowledge of how to defend and the physical ability to do so. Scholes has the knowledge but due to a lack of physical aspects and moments of insanity is a liability and needs more protection from his partner than he can give. The rest are simply inexperienced.
You'd expect the stronger centrehalf to pick him up when he's in that area of the pitch though, and this didn't happen at any point in the game. Never mind the fact it should have been picked up on and sorted out by someone fairly early on in proceedings...it's something we should have been expecting before the game. Fallaini has existed for many years, and caused us similar problems in the past. He didn't suddenly spring into existence last night.
Similarly, playing the non centreback centreback on the same side of the pitch as the non fullback-fullback. Why did this need to happen? Vidic can play on either side of the defence. Carrick is going to be weak whichever side you play him on. Whilst Valencia didn't need to be playing at fullback at all. We only have one right sided fullback in our squad, and he was perfectly fit to play. In fact he's had a better preperation for the season than most of the players who were in the team! I mean, just what the feck? Do other teams do things like that? Just, why? Not to mention that Valencia was our best attacking player last season, so we're then weakening ourselves in two areas of the pitch...for no reason.
I was expecting a bit of a shite performance just because of how poor we've looked in preparing for the season, but yet again we seem to unecessarily handicap ourselves before the game's even started. Who is it in our coaching staff who thought this was a good idea? Does Mancini sneak into the dressing room before games and fiddle around with the team sheet?
The first half was embarassing. Not in the sense of being one sided, but because Everton just kept getting the ball and deliberately attacking down the same side of the pitch, every single time, and every single time we looked a shambles in dealing with it, and yet no one did anything about it, and nothing about the way we set up or played indicated any kind of attempt to address the issue (which was in large part only created in the first place through our own choice of team selection).
"Here you go Carrick, you're the weakest point in our team, so what we'll do is deliberately weaken the area right next to you, so you also have to do two jobs at once, neither of which you can actually do. Also, Vidic isn't going to deal with the main attacking threat in the opposition team, you are!...off you go then"
Possibly because Evra's our most adventurous full-back and Fergie wanted a natural defender behind him?
As for not playing Rafael, he dropped a bollock in a huge game for his country and got publicly chastised by his coach immediately afterwards. For all we know his head is all over the place as a result. Actually, never mind what we know, I'll tell you who knows, his manager. The bloke who's watched him train all week and makes a decision based on what the player has been producing on the pitch and whatever discussions he has with him as an individual.
Lets' feck all that out the window, though, because noodlehair from the internet knows better than Sir Alex Ferguson who we should have picked at right back and which side our central defenders should have played on. Well done.
Well I mean what's the alternative with the current squad? Rafael for Valencia? Don't see much changing in terms of an aerial/physical battle. Also do you not think Fellani was purposely moving around to target the weaker aspects of our team? Due to injuries there was nothing we could really do about the weaknesses at fullback and centre back. That's something I think we just have to say we were unfortunate. In the middle though I think we made a mistake in playing scholes, who shouldn't play these sorts of games unless we're already winning and more importantly the fact that we haven't brought in a legitimate alternative to Carrick.
I normally think noodle goes a bit over the top with his rants, but after yesterday I completely agree. Valencia on right back and Nani on RW was absolutely pointless after last season and pre-season. Rafael on the back and Valencia on the wing would have made so much more sense, especially with Rafael being our only RB and perfectly fit.
Carrick marking Fellaini is not much to do about in open play because you cant expect CBs to man mark. That would lead to huge spaces behind and between them. But on the set pieces its either a huge coaching blunder or a serious case of Vidic not taking responsibility. Hes our best CB, he should willingly seek out to mark their biggest aerial threats on set pieces.
Carrick had a mare, but mainly because hes played in a position where hes always been shit whenever hes played there. He cant handle players more physical than him in the air, so of course he struggles with Fellaini.
It should also be mentioned that our midfield was toothless and in no point of the game before their goal in control of the tempo. I know our options were limited and Carrick probably had to play CB yesterday, but it was apparent that our midfield struggled a lot as well without Carrick in the middle to control tempo and break up their play with his usually plentiful interceptions. Neither Scholes nor Cleverley had an ounce of defensive ability last night, and they simply seem like a poor midfield two.
Carrick marking Fellaini is not much to do about in open play because you cant expect CBs to man mark. That would lead to huge spaces behind and between them. But on the set pieces its either a huge coaching blunder or a serious case of Vidic not taking responsibility. Hes our best CB, he should willingly seek out to mark their biggest aerial threats on set pieces.
Carrick had a mare, but mainly because hes played in a position where hes always been shit whenever hes played there. He cant handle players more physical than him in the air, so of course he struggles with Fellaini.
It should also be mentioned that our midfield was toothless and in no point of the game before their goal in control of the tempo. I know our options were limited and Carrick probably had to play CB yesterday, but it was apparent that our midfield struggled a lot as well without Carrick in the middle to control tempo and break up their play with his usually plentiful interceptions. Neither Scholes nor Cleverley had an ounce of defensive ability last night, and they simply seem like a poor midfield two.
Evra is a better fullback than Valencia, who isn't a fullback, and is also needed in another area of the pitch for us to be at full strength there.
He just played him there ahead of Rafael because he's taller. I'm sure of it. It wont have been because Rafael's head was all over the place. He's a professional. That's daft...but even so, allowing for the possibility of there being some kind of sensible reason to play Valencia there. It was obvious, and I mean obvious, very early on in the game, that we were hopelessly weak on that side of defence. Something should have been done about it. We didn't have no other options at all, either in terms of the players we picked or how we decided to use them, but we did nothing. We got it wrong and then sat there, letting it continue to go wrong.
Valencia wasn't really involved in many physical battles. He did keep getting caught in poor positions, or paying absolutely no attention to what was going on behind him. This is probably because he's not a fullback.
Due to injuries? We only have one right full back, and he wasn't injured. We nullified arguably our best attacking player of the last few years in order to shove him in a position he doesn't know how to play, when we had someone who does know how to play there readily available. There has to be a very good reason or idea for doing that without it being quite stupid, and whatever that reason or idea was, it pretty clearly wasn't working.
I have no idea why you'd dislike Carrick. He isn't a player that you'd think "I don't like him", in my opinion.
If you don't think he's good enough for United, then clearly you don't rate the rest of our midfield. I'd say when we have a fully fit squad, Carrick will be the first name for the midfield - we clearly rely on him to do the job for us that no one else can do.
The sooner a defender comes back, the better. We missed him in the middle last night.
noods, I suspect the reason Carrick played as the right side centre-half is because he's more comfortable there. Which is a pretty good reason, given that he's not a centre-half.
You're completely right about playing Valencia ahead of Rafael though. That was crazy. And once again it highlighted how we need cover/competition for Carrick. Playing Scholes, Cleverley and Kagawa in centre mid away at Goodison will mean the defence is under a lot of pressure, whatever Second-Half Pogue says
You're completely right about playing Valencia ahead of Rafael though. That was crazy. And once again it highlighted how we need cover/competition for Carrick. Playing Scholes, Cleverley and Kagawa in centre mid away at Goodison will mean the defence is under a lot of pressure, whatever Second-Half Pogue says
The key to dealing with Felaini wasn't to have players following him around to lose aerial contests, it was to deal with the second ball. We didn't do that.
noods, I suspect the reason Carrick played as the right side centre-half is because he's more comfortable there. Which is a pretty good reason, given that he's not a centre-half.
You're completely right about playing Valencia ahead of Rafael though. That was crazy. And once again it highlighted how we need cover/competition for Carrick. Playing Scholes, Cleverley and Kagawa in centre mid away at Goodison will mean the defence is under a lot of pressure, whatever Second-Half Pogue says
I don't think there's a United fan on the planet who would disagree.
You have to wonder if Fergie's decided that he's hopeful Fletcher can provide that cover at some point? If not, I hope there's some substance to those rumours about the ugly Mexican.
All of this discussion would be a moot point if Nani and Rooney didn't play as if they had never kicked the ball before. In the end they only scored one goal and we had plenty of attacking talent out there to score twice. Instead we had basically zero chances because we insisted on pumping the ball out to the wings only for Nani/Rooney/whoever to play in a useless cross.
noods, I suspect the reason Carrick played as the right side centre-half is because he's more comfortable there. Which is a pretty good reason, given that he's not a centre-half.
You're completely right about playing Valencia ahead of Rafael though. That was crazy. And once again it highlighted how we need cover/competition for Carrick. Playing Scholes, Cleverley and Kagawa in centre mid away at Goodison will mean the defence is under a lot of pressure, whatever Second-Half Pogue says
We seemed to have a choice of Carrick looking not very comfortable on the left side of defence, but with an actual defender either side of him, or looking not very comfortable on the right side of defence, with a defender one side and someone else who doesn't look very comfortable on the other.
Of course, the easier option may have just been to stick a defender either side of him on the right, but we chose not to do that, and then chose to keep him on the right anyway, for the entire game.
He will change the team when back in his proper position.
Even after all the signings and rumours, Carrick is one of our most important players.
Even after all the signings and rumours, Carrick is one of our most important players.
I personally think he'll thrive if we play a midfield two of him and Kagawa, with him as the sitting player. Having a quality player like Kagawa takes a lot of the pressure off of Carrick that was there last season.