We cant legislate for our players being idiots and Smalling gave up possession in the 2nd half as well. However there was notable difference in the amount of space available to Arsenal. Also, unlike Blind, Carrick doesn't get caught behind the ball which is criminal for a supposed DM.
17
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 29
- Clean sheets
- 9
- Goals
- 2
- Assists
- 3
- Yellow cards
- 4
We cant legislate for our players being idiots and Smalling gave up possession in the 2nd half as well. However there was notable difference in the amount of space available to Arsenal. Also, unlike Blind, Carrick doesn't get caught behind the ball which is criminal for a supposed DM.
True on that last point, but I think our pressing first half was causing them problems, we sat back second half clear change in approach and I don't think it did us any favours.
that's because his starting position, you logically have more time when you're dropping deep in between the center backs. Players more advanced like Herrera needs to be constantly moving and have too little time because the pressing is much more intense. I'd like to see Herrera do more, as he has good turn and nice acceleration to get rid of his marking man and release some good ball. Fellaini is too clumsy he seems to only know how to chest the ball down and cover the ball well at times..
Blind is alright it's his level we can't expect from him that much more, his lack of pace and strength is really worrying when defending
I love how Mata can't get a game because he's considered too weak to be part of our attack but Blind seems to get a free ride from the manager on being a soft sack of panic with no balls.
Blind at holding and Fellaini in number 10 is just not going to cut it for Manchester United, both be great on the bench though.
Blind at holding and Fellaini in number 10 is just not going to cut it for Manchester United, both be great on the bench though.
One poor performance and now Carrick is far better than Blind, despite him having basically the same weakness of being slow and not the most powerful one.I think Carrick is better too but totally disagree with the way people argued it.
You can see a lot of people already wrote him off in this thread.Not good enough to be a regular apparently despite performed better than most of the other "regulars" this season.
People have thought Carrick is better than Blind for a while (Look at the Blind vs. Carrick thread!).
And Carrick is slow - but his positional sense is far better than Blind's - so he's often in the right place, or near to it... which means he has less ground to cover and thus doesn't have to rely on his speed (or lack of)
I don't think that anyone in history has ever thought that Blind is better than Carrick. There is nothing to base that opinion on.
Blind and Rojo are the only two players in the squad that are 100% Van Gaal's signings. I think those two will get more slack than others.
Good game - very good addition.
Bad game - Squad player at best.
No middle ground.
Bad game - Squad player at best.
No middle ground.
No issues with his performance, some good passes. It was strange we partnered him with Carrick in the second half, it was obvious van Gaal wanted a less open game unfortunately, we'd have won had we kept going as we were and we'd be praising Blind.
To be honest I thought he had a shocking first half by the standards he's set this year. He looked slow, his passing was all over the place, he was missing tackles and I wouldn't have been surprised to see him come off for Carrick at half time. He improved slightly in the second half, but it says it all really when Wellbeck was constantly tackling both Blind and Carrick in the second half, how deep we our midfielders are.
He is a good player. Not brilliant and not a squad player at best.
We should get a commanding DM with whom Blind would function very good.
He either plays with Herrera who goes forward a lot or with Carrick with whom he makes a slow midfield who sits too deep.
He had some very good games this year which people conviniently forget every time he has a bad game.
I absolutely agree with you, infact i have been saying this since January
It's interesting that Blinds defensive stats are so much better than Carricks this season when Carricks positional sense is apparently so much better.
I disagree, I think they just have very different styles. Carrick is less likely to get overrun because he constantly backs off and defends quite deep. He doesn't take the chances that Blind does in pressing. It's easy to say that Carrick offers less risk as it's rare people are getting past him, but we win the ball back slower when he's there instead of Blind. It's an either or approach rather than one being better than the other, for me.
I know that different style can be used to explain the differences in defensive stats, but Carricks were more similarly comparable to Blind until this season, and it's not like his game has changed much (our game, maybe).
I have some bizarre idea that he cannot tackle for shite, is it just me ?
Well, couldn't that be down to the fact that our best run this season coincided with Carrick coming back into the side - and thus we generally played better in those games, and there was less defending to do? You just have to watch the amount of ground that both players seem to cover (Blind looks like he's forever running around, whilst Carrick is where he needs to be more-often then not... but then Carrick is a much more experienced player than Blind, so it's not a crime for Daley to not have the sense that Carrick has yet).
We may win the ball back slower with Carrick (though not that much for me to be honest) but then when he has it we move out of defense quicker, as he is much more assured in his passing and quicker in his decision making than Blind.
I just cant understand why is always + or - with some posters. I guess forums are like that.
Thats because Blind presses quite a bit, and Carrick doesn't bother. They play the game slightly differently, they both read the game very well. However Carrick prefers to sit of the opposition and let them have the ball, where as Blind along with Herrera and Di Maria like to press the opposition and try and win the ball higher up the pitch. It's more high risk though, as if the opposition break that press then Blind has to run back and try and get back in position.
He needs a yaya toure next to him, a strong combative midfielder.
Fair point - and I think it's a bit daft to have our DM pressing high up the pitch - especially when our defence needs all the help it can get.
Might not be a Blind thing as opposed to a LVG thing though... or maybe I'm just used to seeing (and liking) how Carrick goes about his business.
Come onn.. When we want to criticize that run was our worst run performance wise and when we want to praise it's our best run results wise. The games against Everton, Chelsea, City which were good performances against good teams had Blind without Carrick. Southampton and Arsenal was Carrick without Blind, with results but terrible play. Our only good game in that period was Hull, where Carrick was brilliant - but Blind was similarly brilliant in the games against Leicester and QPR.
Defensive wise, Blind is more Fletcher than Carrick, which is why he's running around a lot more. There are definitely times when he should probably be more cautious, but as you said that would hopefully come with age. Similarly there are times when Carrick should have the opportunity to step up, be more aggressive and take a risk and he doesn't.
I don't see the thought process of Carrick being in the team requiring less defensive work. Surely that's only possible if you've forgotten the performances?
Maybe but one worked in the first half, and the other (not pressing) didn't work very well in the second.
I don't like the fact we try to take all the risk out of the game, without risk there is little reward tbh
It didn't really "work" in the first half - as Arsenal still got at us... the main difference in the first half is that we had Herrera providing some legs to get around the defense/midfield and we actually tried to play some football - the second half however we had no legs in midfield (neither Carrick nor Blinds fault) and were trying to be too direct without fully committing to it. Also, everyone's passing went to absolute shit.
There was Newcastle as well. We also completely dominated Palace, had the majority of the game against Stoke and beat Liverpool 3-0 (though Carrick was in defence I think?).
We were shit against Palace who sat back for most of the game. Mata came on to score a late winner, in a game where we created very little.
The point is the amount of defensive work we had to do in that game - which was zero.
You'll conceed chances in games, most of them were due to us giving the ball away needlessly. Arsneal didn't create much first half.
We had the better chances and dominated posession, we got the equaliser and then we were on the accendancy.
Yes because Palace didn't bother attacking... great
Very good buy imo.
The 3-0 against Liverpool would only be another results one though. How much did we get overrun that game? Our midfield was nowhere. The reason I didn't bring it up was because Carrick was in defense as you said.
The Palace, Newcastle and Stoke game - you think they'd have gone differently had we swapped the 2? I don't. The same I'm sure we still would have battered QPR and Leicester with Carrick instead of Blind. Blind was very good in defense against Palace too, and did very well bringing the ball from the back. You could have swapped the two round and that game went exactly the same.
You could then point to awful games like Stoke or Spurs away where we were dire and our midfield got overrun plenty. Carrick being atleast partially at fault for N'Zonzis goal infact.
My point isn't that one is better than the other, I just think they have different styles and are pretty interchangeable. I don't think our results/performances with either in the team have been any better than the other. I definitely feel there's no noticeable difference in the amount of defensive work when ones in the team. That makes 0 sense to me.
Woah, we weren't "dire" against Spurs away... we dominated that game, particularly the first half.
You said about it being interesting that Blinds defensive stats are better than Carricks - I pointed out that Carrick has played more games where we played better and had to do less defending... I'm not talking about his performance in those games being masterful or anything, just that that would be a reason as to why his defensive stats aren't as good - because he had less defending to do.
Exactly the point. See above.
To be fair, you did say Carrick coming back into the side - 'thus' less defending. But even if you're conceding that now/I misunderstood, and that it was simply down to the games played, couldn't you just spin it the other way as 'of course Carrick has looked less suspect and not been overrun so often - he's played in the games against teams who don't attack'.
Considering this is a first season in the premier league, coming from the Dutch league too, compounded by a serious injury, covering multiple roles in multiple systems at a still young age for the type of player he is then Blind has had an excellent season overall so far. His level has dropped in the last month, which I expect is due to tiredness more than anything else. He can have a huge future at United.
That second paragraph isn't aimed at you by the way.
Lock him in the gym all summer.
To be honest, I thought he would be signed as a very good squad player, who can play a few different positions competently but our inability to get other midfield targets together with injuries have meant that he's had to be a regular starter
To a point - the main thing was a reason why Blind would have better defending stats than Carrick, because he's played in games where we've had moer to do - but as an aside, I do think we do play better football with Carrick on the pitch - namely because his passing is the best in our squad, and he doesn't take forever on the ball like everyone seems to do at the moment... but this season "better football" really is like marginal gains...
I like Blind a lot - I think he's been a good signing and has had a good season - I do however think he needs to offer the defense more protection then he currently gives though - especially in bigger games like yesterday. But then I also think we've overplayed him a bit and now he's a bit knacked - like Carrick was by the end of December.
I actually think that passing is more style than anything else too. Blind plays plenty of fantastic passes, but he seems to have far more focus on playing a quick simple ball and keeping things ticking. I actually think Carrick is a slower passer, which is why his passes are generally a little more rewarding. Carrick will take a few seconds to assess options before playing a pass between the lines to a winger further forward. In that same period Blind will have moved the ball on straight away to the fullback, who may have then played it to the winger.
Blinds definitely more cautious in his passing, but I think it's under instruction and also a result of his bringing through at Ajax. Again I think it's just a different approach that one being better than the other in terms of ability. Of course, you can prefer one approach to another.
The more Blind plays the more he seems to be trying those balls though. Not long ago he played that fantastic through ball to Wilson and the over the top assist to Van Persie.
He has been getting higher up the pitch more and more these last few games though and often goes for a cutting forward ball a lot more often than the other two. I think the main reason is he has no fear of being dropped as he's clearly one of LvG main guys, it's the same way that for quite a large part of this season Januzaj played with fear and restraint when he got the ball.
The thing I find odd is people saying he needs Wanyama or someone next to him, so basically play with two DM's, as this is not a Matic/Fabregas deal as Blind hasn't got anywhere like Fabregas's playmaking abilities. Blind is supposed be the DM we play to allow the creative players to function like Carrick did.
I never really thought he was slow, is that what everyone thinks?
All the comments from yesterday were about his lack of speed. I wonder if it's not just that in contract to Arsenal's midfielders yesterday he was slow.
All the comments from yesterday were about his lack of speed. I wonder if it's not just that in contract to Arsenal's midfielders yesterday he was slow.
I think he is carrying a knock. Maybe from the Newcastle game where he was struggling after a challlenge.
He's no Usain Bolt, but he is usually spritelier than he was last night.
He's really really slow.
I think people who mention Wanyama thinks that he should play in place of Blind, that's my personal opinion as well. We would be much more solid and that would allow Herrera to play more expansive game. I agree with the fear of players from being dropped. They are so afraid of making mistakes. Some are backed up by manager but some are benched immidietely unfortunately. Blind is mummy's darling but at least he can do the job unlike Persie.
I think we should be aspiring higher when searching for the so much needed defensive midfielder in the summer.. It's gonna be problem whoever decides that Carrick and Blind is good enough to challenge for the title in the league or champions league, our weekest part in the team forever it seems..