Finally? I'm fairly sure that the majority of United fans know how important he is and we've known with a while. It's not some sudden realisation.
Anyway, good to see him getting some praise, I suppose.
Alas poor Carrick...WTF has happened?
- Thread starter Carl
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Finally? I'm fairly sure that the majority of United fans know how important he is and we've known with a while. It's not some sudden realisation.
Anyway, good to see him getting some praise, I suppose.
Introduce one slightly more combative CM to the mix this season and we'd walk the title.
This just shows that despite all the speculations and theories we can come up with as fans as to why X player didn't perform like he could in this or that big game, sometimes the truth is something completely different.
The question, for me, isn't whether Carrick has been somewhere between outstanding and sensational for United over the years, but whether he's done enough already to be a United "legend".
Most of us caftards are very cautious, rightly so, of who we ordain as a United legend. I don't know what the bright line is to be a United legend, Michael Carrick has certainly done enough already IMHO to have that conversation.
Most of us caftards are very cautious, rightly so, of who we ordain as a United legend. I don't know what the bright line is to be a United legend, Michael Carrick has certainly done enough already IMHO to have that conversation.
I think he still has a good 3-4 years left in him. In my opinion, he would be a legend by the time he finishes. Having Van Persie this season has allowed Carrick to be more adventurous with his passing. Some of his chips to RVP have been exquisite. I haven't checked the numbers (as I don't care much about them) though I won't be surprised to see that his forward and "Key" passes have improved since last season at this same stage. I am pretty sure that Van Persie and Carrick are going to win us a Champion League soon.
------------Carrick
------Cleverley----Anderson
Nani/Kagawa---------------Rooney
-------------RVP
in UCL away matches please
------Cleverley----Anderson
Nani/Kagawa---------------Rooney
-------------RVP
in UCL away matches please
The soundEX is woeful.
Finally taking centre stage?
Look back in this thread and you will find that this is not the case. But, then again most fans have not played the game long enough to see/understand the talent of a player or understand the difficulties in different situations.
Therefore lot's of fans will rate a player like Fletcher more than Carrick. It's easy to see all that Fletcher does, but it's not that easy with Carrick and it can be more difficult to understand how hard some of the things he does really is.
I see what you are saying and agree with the sentiments you make but I think Carricks passing is much easier to appreciate than Fletcher pre Illness pressing style as imo it took longer to get the appreciation from most United fans. Carricks never had the stick Fletcher got early in his career here so maybe not the greatest comparison there. Both very good players and great options in a squad but neither great players in their own right. Glad to have had them and both fantastic servants.
It's like journalists are only now realizing what Fergie and most of the fans have known all along: that Carrick is actually pretty good.
I don't think most of the fans have known/acknowledged that and I still think there's loads of United fans that don't really rate him. Go back to 2011 and Carrick-bashing was the 'in' thing.
Sir Alex on Carrick signing a new contract:
The Caf on Carrick signing a new contract:
Why am I not happy
Well he's been our main midfielder in terms of appearances over a period in which we've won 4 PL titles, and finished pretty much as close as you can to runners up in the other 2 seasons, and we've also got to 3 CL finals on the way, winning 1 and in the other 2 facing one of the greatest teams ever assembled in football, and won some other domestic cups on the way.
It's good that he's getting more recognition now, it's a shame that he hasn't had more, a lot of it is undeniably his fault where he has frustrated because with his talent you know over the years he could have asserted himself more.
But a lot of it is our failings being usually pinned on the midfielders and with him typically being our main midfielder the flack usually falls to him. In that article the CL finals against Barca are mentioned as a black mark against Carrick, yet on both cases he effectively played on his own in the middle. He didn't have a partner who could realistically take half the responsibility in the middle, to help him out when he needed it etc.
That's the beauty of that Barca middle 3 as it was, Busquets holding, xavi as the link and iniesta as the attacker, it works/worked so well because it was so balanced, they each had a role that they could perform excellently. Carrick had anderson and giggs as partners, players either not ready to play barca or not suited.
I think that's quite characteristic of Carrick's time here. Aside from his first 2 seasons and probably 1 season where Fletcher hit top form, Carrick hasn't had a proper partner in the middle, either in the sense of a constant partner or in the sense of someone who could do their half of the work. Scholes has become increasingly needing of protection, anderson has fluctuated in form/fitness, giggs likewise has fluctuated. When you think of top midfieders they usually have a partner that allows them to shine and I think carrick has rarely had that. Keane and Scholes were so great because they balanced well. It's not the only thing holding Carrick back, clearly he has performed well with each of them as partners but I think he could have been more consistent and perhaps better had he had a more balanced partner more often.
Hopefully if clev keeps developing his game, for the next 2 seasons or so whilst Carrick can operate at his peak, we can have a properly equal partnership in the middle which I think will help Carrick to continue to show his quality. And hopefully from an England standpoint he can keep getting more opportunities, because I think he and wilshere could work really well.
It's good that he's getting more recognition now, it's a shame that he hasn't had more, a lot of it is undeniably his fault where he has frustrated because with his talent you know over the years he could have asserted himself more.
But a lot of it is our failings being usually pinned on the midfielders and with him typically being our main midfielder the flack usually falls to him. In that article the CL finals against Barca are mentioned as a black mark against Carrick, yet on both cases he effectively played on his own in the middle. He didn't have a partner who could realistically take half the responsibility in the middle, to help him out when he needed it etc.
That's the beauty of that Barca middle 3 as it was, Busquets holding, xavi as the link and iniesta as the attacker, it works/worked so well because it was so balanced, they each had a role that they could perform excellently. Carrick had anderson and giggs as partners, players either not ready to play barca or not suited.
I think that's quite characteristic of Carrick's time here. Aside from his first 2 seasons and probably 1 season where Fletcher hit top form, Carrick hasn't had a proper partner in the middle, either in the sense of a constant partner or in the sense of someone who could do their half of the work. Scholes has become increasingly needing of protection, anderson has fluctuated in form/fitness, giggs likewise has fluctuated. When you think of top midfieders they usually have a partner that allows them to shine and I think carrick has rarely had that. Keane and Scholes were so great because they balanced well. It's not the only thing holding Carrick back, clearly he has performed well with each of them as partners but I think he could have been more consistent and perhaps better had he had a more balanced partner more often.
Hopefully if clev keeps developing his game, for the next 2 seasons or so whilst Carrick can operate at his peak, we can have a properly equal partnership in the middle which I think will help Carrick to continue to show his quality. And hopefully from an England standpoint he can keep getting more opportunities, because I think he and wilshere could work really well.
My post there is pretty fair. He came back very well from his poor form and I said recently he has been one of our most consistent players over the past 18 or so months.
I still believe he he is a good player but not a great player.
I still don't get why all the blame for the Barca defeats falls on his shoulder. Midfielders that are supposedly much better than him have been made to look very average by Barca yet Carrick should have somehow single handedly won us the two games
Yeah, in Rome he played with a broken foot next to an invisible Anderson and then only Giggs in the second half. At Wembley he had to play basically on his own against Xavi and Iniesta. Rooney helped out with Busquets but Giggs was nowhere to be seen that day.
He's inferior to all three of the Barca trio but who isn't?
Does it?
Not so much now but back when we lost in Rome it most definitely did.
Not now. But after the Rome match, yes the blame was being put on him. Didn't knew that he played with a broken foot. Fair play to him for that.
For me, he's not a United legend. He's improved and that's to his credit but he's not a legend. On his day he's a good player.
Really? Can't remember that myself, but I always thought the blame was more so down to defensive feck ups for the goals and the tactics used that left Ronaldo isolated.
Likewise, the 2011 final was more so down to being naive with the team selection and thinking a 2 man midfield would be ok just because it did well against Chelsea and Schalke
Dunno, never crossed my mind that Carrick was to blame for either of those games, there were far more factors, if anything the biggest problem was that he didn't have a capable midfielder (or two) beside him.
Even Rooney wasn't doing good job in defence(he was our best player overall probably), Busquets was excellent that night.
I don't think it did. I think everyone should look at themselves. We're playing a team that can keep the ball for fun. Why we played long ball 10/10 just to give them the ball back is a mystery.
Truth be told, if Barca played to their best (which they did) then they were always going to win. The next time we face Barca we should park the bus and hope for a bit of luck
Singlehandedly won us the two games? Who the hell expected him to do that? It's this sort of ludicrous hyperbole that lowers the debates on here, you say something ridiculous that nobody thinks and the pretend that's what you're arguing against.
The Barcelona games mainly come up when people start raving about him like he's a world class player, because they demonstrate that he's so far inferior to the best midfielders in the world that he looks like he's playing a different sport. What's expected of world class midfielders is that they do their job properly and don't look completely out of place stood on the same pitch as his opponents. If you expected Carrick to perform like he did in Rome and London then that's fine, it's a pretty fair expectation, players of his ability do look like shit when they're up against Xavi and Iniesta, but you can't really reconcile expectations that low with having an extremely high opinion of him as a player.
The Barcelona games mainly come up when people start raving about him like he's a world class player, because they demonstrate that he's so far inferior to the best midfielders in the world that he looks like he's playing a different sport. What's expected of world class midfielders is that they do their job properly and don't look completely out of place stood on the same pitch as his opponents. If you expected Carrick to perform like he did in Rome and London then that's fine, it's a pretty fair expectation, players of his ability do look like shit when they're up against Xavi and Iniesta, but you can't really reconcile expectations that low with having an extremely high opinion of him as a player.
Busquets made "only" 75 successful passes that night; in almost all CL games before that he had over 100. To an extent, that was down to Rooney harassing Busquets - he could not harass him into misplacing passes though. All he achieved was that even more passes than usual ran through Xavi who completed 142 passes out of 150. Which was out of this fecking world.
Basically, Barcelona were intelligent enough not to involve Busquets as much as usual and they didn't need to because Xavi and Iniesta raped us anyway.
Randall
"I dont mind that he has signed on"
Sir Alex
“I am delighted Michael has signed a new contract"
Hmm. Seems to me you would've been happy to see him leave.
Every single world class midfielder has been thoroughly embarrassed up against Xavi and Iniesta so no, that's not remotely true. Pirlo was the best midfielder in the world last year but couldn't get near them in the final. Schweinsteiger is muppet hero #1 on here but he looked every bit as helpless v Spain.
Carrick played well in the 2009 final.
Considering he was almost man marking him, that's still good number of passes tbf. I am not talking he was lazy or something like that, because it was evident he worked his socks off that night, and he was very good with the ball, but he didn't really stop Busquets from doing his usual work.
He's bossed it so far, looks confident on the ball and played some lovely passes.
We're seeing his moonlight, as he does less running , less getting forward and more 3 man midfields, he has more space and is facing forward instead of backwards.
Fantastic player. Turning into Pirlo.
Fantastic player. Turning into Pirlo.
He's awesome at the moment.
What a ball that was to Rafael.
What a ball that was to Rafael.
His passing has been absolutely class. Taking the piss today!
Absolutely flawless offensively and defensively.
He's been fecking class in the first-half, and ever since the Reading game to be honest. His season usually follows this pattern though, he is often poor for the first 3 months, and then outstanding for the middle third and not as good in the final. Here's to hoping he can maintain this kind of form until the end of the season, as we have no 'midfield problem' at the moment with him in this form.
He's gotten forward more this season than he did from 09-11 and we still hardly ever play a 3-man midfield, he's just in great form, no over-analysis needed. He's played those lovely sweeping balls in behind the defence since day one but we've not seen this many of them since 06/07. There's obvious similarities between our setup now with Saha offering that target up top, Scholes buzzing around in front of Carrick and him having that space to pick those balls out. What's even more surprising is he's actually looked a bit cocky today. I can't remember him playing with this much confidence in ages. Chipping it over players like they're not even there and looking for the cutting pass all the time.
He's always been a great player, and as Brwned says, he's playing with a swagger.
You watch this game and compare the performance of Carrick to that of Gerrard and you have even more reason to wonder why he isn't in the England team.
Flawless. Absolutely majestic so far.
Controlling the match since kickoff. Absolutely marvellous performance so far. I hope he can keep this up till the end of the season.