It really isn't
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) are here to discuss Amad saving our blushes in a win against Southampton as well as our now annual loss at home to Brighton. They discuss Amorim's post-match comments, revisit how mid-table we may or may not be, and discuss some transfer news.
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It really isn't
Plechazunga said:
Is it that I'm missing the point of MC's role, mate? Perhaps he's not supposed to rampage forward or continually play-in the strikers...
De Rossi is overated
I always said - if Carrick had half the mental strength of someone like Hargreaves, he'd have been up there with some of the best.
I love Carrick, but he's probably a level below world class. Still appreciate his contribution to our most successful period ever and long may his outstanding form of last year continue.
I love Carrick, but he's probably a level below world class. Still appreciate his contribution to our most successful period ever and long may his outstanding form of last year continue.
Anyway, this is the de Rossi thread. He can definitely do a job for us and would improve our midfield but I fear the transfer fee and wages which will be needed to prize him away from Roma will be too high.
Then I'd rather take a punt on someone a bit younger like Sahin, Witsel, Bender or Martinez. Aaargh anyway, this midfield discussions been done to death over the past 2 seasons.
Then I'd rather take a punt on someone a bit younger like Sahin, Witsel, Bender or Martinez. Aaargh anyway, this midfield discussions been done to death over the past 2 seasons.
Nicky Butt's career was rather disappointing after leaving United. At United he had the luxury of being partnered with either Keane or a young Scholes. I don't think he was as good as Carrick is.
A lot of sensible posts about Carrick. Not world class, mentality lets him down at times - but nonetheless an excellent midfielder, unappreciated by both United fans and fans of other clubs - largely because he isn't a highlight reel player in my opinion.
A lot of sensible posts about Carrick. Not world class, mentality lets him down at times - but nonetheless an excellent midfielder, unappreciated by both United fans and fans of other clubs - largely because he isn't a highlight reel player in my opinion.
It's never really been that Carrick fails mentally in the big games, it's just that because he's a very good midfielder, but not one of the very best out there, he's never really going to control the midfield in the biggest games which is perfectly natural.
The mental strength issue is undoubtedly something which has stopped carrick imo really showing what he can do. He's got too much class to take back seat on the creativity which he often seems happy to do. But I think something that doesn't really get mentioned is that genuine lack of a midfield partner that didn't need some sort of protection for most his time here. He had a period where he and fletcher played together but that was pretty much when carrick was going through his rough patch. Other then that it's always been someone who needed him aside from his first season or so where scholes had that little bit mobility. Since then if he's played with scholes he's had to deal with scholes diminishing physical ability, which had forced us to sit deeper and given him less scope to get forward. Giggs and ando his other frequent partners have had their moments but in general have either been slight liabilities there in terms of their experience and style and given their attacking nature and defensive frailties meant carrick couldn't get forward as much and had more burden defensively.
For example in the city game at their ground, I thought carrick played very well but simply didn't have a partner who had the physical attributed necessary for that game. As I said mental issues have held him back but I think the fact that he has never really had a player alongside him, in his peak, for a sustained period has made it tough for him to show all his abilities and additionally our decision to in general stick with a 442 of sorts, letting ourselves get outnumbered in the middle on a regular basis, has also made it harder. He's not had it easy in the middle and I think that's often overlooked.
For example in the city game at their ground, I thought carrick played very well but simply didn't have a partner who had the physical attributed necessary for that game. As I said mental issues have held him back but I think the fact that he has never really had a player alongside him, in his peak, for a sustained period has made it tough for him to show all his abilities and additionally our decision to in general stick with a 442 of sorts, letting ourselves get outnumbered in the middle on a regular basis, has also made it harder. He's not had it easy in the middle and I think that's often overlooked.
How am I talking shit? I'm not disagreeing with anything you've said either. I'm not talking about Butt ever replacing either Scholes, Keane or Carrick. I just rate Carrick as a better player than DeRossi is all. DeRossi has a good couple of international tournaments and every one goes gaga over him whilst for his club I've never been impressed. The crying shame I see in all this is how much we miss Fletcher and how his illness has robbed us of a very good player indeed. Carrick and Fletcher shit all over DeRossi.
No one said otherwise. Everybody agrees we need a CM. Its when you say this:
That i ask who we can buy thats as good as Carrick.
There are midfielders as good as and better than Carrick out there, we wont be able to sign any of them though for various reasons. If you have someone in mind, please name them.
We could have had Montolivo for very little this summer, he is on a par with Carrick and would have improved our squad significantly.
Not sure Will is one of United's scouting/management team, so it's not really up to him. But if you concede that there are as good and better players out there, a club of our stature ought to be able to get one in a period of four years or so.
That way, when we had an injury crisis and Carrick wasn't able to play there, we may not have had to field Park and Rafael.
Is he? first i've heard claiming as such. I admit i have seen very little of him, and he did have a pretty good WC, but to claim he is as on par with Carrick who has contributed to many title wins and CL campaigns, is a bit of a stretch in my view.
Had his performances over the past couple of years reflected your claims , i have little doubt that his name would have been mentioned far more often, in our epic discussions regarding CM's of note.
Anyone who has watched Italian football over the last few years will tell you what a good player Montolivo is, that's why he is now playing for AC Milan. For my money he is a more composed player than Carrick, not as good defensively but you very rarely see him getting flustered like Carrick does when being pressed.
Maybe if you only started watching Utd in 2006.
As fond as I was of Butt Carrick is a far far better player
Nice to see we're back to under estimating Carrick this season though. I've always felt that those who can't appreciate his play don't really understand football or at least certainly never kicked a ball.
You are working under the presumption, as many of us did and still are, that Fergie is or has been, seriously interested in signing a CM.
The bottom line is since Ronaldo left we have looked at only 2, and bid for none. Yet during that time we have signed Valencia, Young, Kagawa. Seriously looked at or looking at Nasri, Hazard, Sanchez, Lucas, Gaitan even back to Douglas Costa. Not many CM's in that bunch, even when we released Hargo and Scholes retired we never really bid for any CM's, instead signing Young.
I think he is looking for a Barca set up, which involves Carrick in Busquets role, Scholes in Xavi's, and he is and has been looking for that Iniesta type player to operate behind the striker or cut in from the flanks. Almost all the players we are seriously linked with fits that criteria.
I am now of the opinion that Fergie has never really wanted to change from the interchangeable system we had when Ronaldo was here. Only injuries last season and the piks payment situation before that, have prevented us from reverting much quicker back to that highly successful system, and adapting it to a more barca style of interchangeable, fluid and possession based football.
Why else would he be buying the likes of Young and Kagawa, while still looking at Hazard and lucas, instead of a CM? The only answer that makes any sense to me, is if we are looking to have more players playing in central areas, and therefore negating the need for additional CM's. I
It's only a theory i know, but how we set up this season will prove it right or wrong. hope im right, otherwise i have to conclude i can make no sense of what SAF is doing and am back to the position of complete bemusement at our failure to sign a CM, that i have held for the past 2 seasons at least.
Fair enough Evra, as i said i know very little about him and will concede the point to you based on your superior knowledge of the player and his capabilities.
I'm not, I'm saying he ought to have been!
Sides like Barca still need CMs... in fact, in Spain's case they seem to consist almost entirely of CMs. Scholes as the Xavi player is fine, except that he actually retired last year!
Yes i got that, i was trying to point out why he has not seemed that interested, when everyone else myself included, could not understand why we have not been looking more seriously at them.
We are basically looking at wide players who can also play advanced midfield, and that is predominantly all we have been looking at. The question is why, and to what end?
Having 2 wide players cutting in (as Iniesta would) and someone playing behind a front man (see interest in RVP) would congest that area much more and somewhat negate the need for additional CM's. Scholes and Carrick will sit, and the others will interchange in front of them.
That was my point Plech, and the only logical reason i can fathom why we have not been seriously looking at signing a CM. We only really need extra bodies there if we are looking at keeping 4-4-2, as under those conditions Scholes and Carrick can be overrun.
Under the new premise, a potential for an additional 3 players operating also in more central areas, negates much of that need.
That's one thing we need to look at: a player who can handle high pressure and still find an accurate pass when being pressed constantly. As good as Carrick as it's something he struggles with. Montolivo's one I've not really thought of at all but he could actually be a decent option thinking about it.
But I think a large part of that is our set up. Generally we have 2 midfielders, 2 very wide wingers and 2 strikers. Our game looks to make the pitch as wide as we can. As a consequence most our players are quite far apart from each other, which means that when we are pressed well it becomes very hard to deal with it. There isn't really a quick out ball, particularly not a forward pass, you're either gonna have to pass it to your partner who is likely to be undr similar pressure or backwards. If we were to change things up a little and ask our players to come inside more, or get one of the strikers to drop back deeper then personally I don't think the likes of Carrick would look as liable to that situation as they have.
If Kagawa has been brought to play in between the midfield and striker then I think you won't see us suffer from this situation as much as we have.
He could have been, past tense. His contract was up and we could have signed him, I'd love to ask SAF if he even considered it.
How would anyone who started watching Utd in 06 rate butt higher than Carrick?
I certainly see a debate over Carrick v Butt. Carrick a better footballer and passer, butt a far more combative midfielder who also was quite a good passer and at times was more effective in certain games than Carrick would have been.
I don't underrate Carrick, at all. I think he is a very good player, but many appear to overrate him.
I can see where you're coming from but on the two strikers point, Rooney has been known in the past year or so for often dropping deep and playing in a supporting striker role. Most of the time when he's been there he has usually tracked back to help out them midfield.
I agree that if we perhaps changed our setup a little our central midfielders would find it easier to deal with the high pressure, however I still don't think that Carrick is particularly good at dealing with it really. We could do with a midfielder who is calm and cool in all situations when being pressed, whether there's a simple pass or not.
This appears to be quite the cliche these days
I'd love it if we got De Rossi, he was amazing in the Euro's. A complete leader as well, which we could do with in midfield given the age of Clev, Anderson, Kagawa etc.
Really hope he doesn't go to City, him and Yaya would just be unplayable.
Really hope he doesn't go to City, him and Yaya would just be unplayable.
Rooney has played deeper at times but personally I don't think he's done it often enough, or come as deep as required. Whether that's something Fergie has asked him to do or something Rooney has chosen, much like at the euro's he seems to be inbetween the hole and the striker, rather then as deep as he has been when he was younger and certainly not an attacking mid like Kagawa. Additionally I don't think Rooney himself has dealt with high pressure in that deeper role himself recently.
I think in the past Carrick could be accused off sometimes being a little slow on the ball, but since he's snapped back in to form I think he's been fine there . Like I said our formation doesn't help us in these games and I also think lacking a balanced partner doesn't help. Scholes has the ability but not the physical qualties that those high pace games require, ando and giggs are liabilites at times because of their passing choices and defensive strengths and he hasn't really played with clev, but i'd anticipate similar problems to the latter two.
Basically I don't think it's as simple as a one for one swap. If we really want to deal with this problem then I think we need to change a few things. As I said I think a lot of the time we seem quite rigid in our formation and reluctant to change, that for me needs to be worked on, the introduction of Kagawa could aid that but then we also want RVP so who knows where kagawa will play if that happens. Additionally the balance in the middle needs to be better. With the current choices we have, we'll need ando or clev fit to partner Carrick. If we played carrick and one of them with Kagawa ahead then I really think we wouldn't have such an issue when coming up against that style.
I do apologise I quoted the wrong message, I mean't to quote the person who was saying Nicky Butt was better than Carrick and ended up clicking wrong post and ranting at the wrong person.
They said the same shit 2 years ago, when he was playing like a knockoff version of Makelele.
Amazing?? I must have watched different matches to you
Yeahh, he was one of the best in the tournament IMO.
Quite a few posters on here were saying the same.
Thought he was poor against Ireland, and average against England. Seems to me that he doesn't live up to the hype of transferites every time I see him
Germany and Spain in the groups at CB were his best games. I didn't see him against Ireland and yeah he was alright against England but not amazing.
Usually I agree with you that he doesn't live up the reputation, I said pretty much the exact same thing when I praised him during the Euros, it is the best I have ever seen him play. At the 2010 WC he was pretty shit along with the rest of Italy, so this Euros was a surprise to me. I don't watch much serie A bar the odd Milan or Juve game, so not sure how good he is for Roma. Maybe he just had a good Euros.
I can see where you are coming from in that he flatters to decieve a bit, but in the Euros he was very good.
You dont need to be a club scout to know CMs of Carrick's quality. There arent many.
Its all to do with what Sir Alex wants anyways. With the kind of players we've bought and been interested in recently, we could do the same with CMs. For some reason though, he seems to be happy with what he has.
It'd be quite incredible if we didnt add to the CM department this summer specially when it comes to cover for Carrick but then SAF did it last summer, so he might do the same again.
Thank god I'm not the only one.
I do apologise I quoted the wrong message, I mean't to quote the person who was saying Nicky Butt was better than Carrick and ended up clicking wrong post and ranting at the wrong person.
Apology accepted and no harm done. At least we can all agree that Derossi is over rated.
I would love the guy. He is a combination of De Jong and Barry, with a little extra zing to boot.
De Jong would walk through him on the pitch as if he wasn't there. After watching Sully Muntari physically dominate him, I really don't rate him.
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