Tank.
Welcome back Darren, great performance this evening.
Welcome back Darren, great performance this evening.
Darren Fletcher
- Thread starter Maciej
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I kept waiting for him to tire - it didn't really happen 
Great performance, our CM options don't look half bad all of a sudden, the defence on the other hand....
His passing was very good but he made 0 tackles and 1 interception. Considering the position he was playing and how his condition might affect his game, I find that slightly concerning.
Really liked the Cleverly combination, wonder if we'll be seeing more of that.
He's never been mainly about the tackling, more the harrying and positioning.
Passed it pretty well but in the holding role you expect him to physically impose himself and he doesn't look able to do it yet for me.
Perhaps. His passing was extremely good tonight, I should add.
I thought he was toss.
Complete passenger, not that it is a suprise.
Complete passenger, not that it is a suprise.
He was taking too long to get close to players when we weren't in possession. It was causing us a lot of problems in the first half. He plays with a brain so didn't stray too much, which helped, but he's still got a bit of a way to go. He was basically a non entity at times.
On the ball he was fine, but you'd expect that. If anything his passing seems to be better playing in the deeper role than when he's running around everywhere.
On the ball he was fine, but you'd expect that. If anything his passing seems to be better playing in the deeper role than when he's running around everywhere.
Considering we know the background to his performances now, I can say I was impressed. He's not quite at his unrelenting best but he's definitely on the way. Playing out there in midfield, 2 goals down and needing a response. His workrate was very good but you could see his medium to long range passing was lacking some consistency.
It's great to have him back though.
It's great to have him back though.
He looks better in attack, but tbf he still doesn't bring anything defensively, but most important thing is that he is playing, that will come eventually. Great to see him playing again.
I thought he played really well, some great passes and his energy levels were excellent. I agree that he didn't make many tackles etc but with the way we were playing it was tough. Although our formation is narrower it's not that narrow, the two wide players don't tuck in that much off the ball and so when teams do attack centrally there's a lot of space as rooney has to come back quite a distance, so it's tough for the holding player.
Tbh though although Fletcher is associated with tackling etc cause of the Arsenal games his main defensive style imo has always been to try and shepherd players out wide or close off gaps and force the other team to go sideways.
Tbh though although Fletcher is associated with tackling etc cause of the Arsenal games his main defensive style imo has always been to try and shepherd players out wide or close off gaps and force the other team to go sideways.
Thought he was invisible first half, couldn't prevent the goals against
Second half he got better as te game progressed, influencing the game better
Second half he got better as te game progressed, influencing the game better
His passing is very good actually, which is a pleasant surprise to me at least - I certainly dont remember his passing being this good before his illness. Possible his role in the team made his passing game suffer as he was running more around with higher intensity - that stuff can make your passing suffer a lot.
His positioning is far worse than Carrick's though. He hardly intercepts any of the opposition's moves, while Carrick in the same position is one of the midfielders with most interceptions per games in the PL as well as more tackles than people give him credit for.
Overall I think hes doing a better job as a cover for Carrick than I had expected, and Im happy with that. Its a position weve had problems covering adequately in recent seasons.
His positioning is far worse than Carrick's though. He hardly intercepts any of the opposition's moves, while Carrick in the same position is one of the midfielders with most interceptions per games in the PL as well as more tackles than people give him credit for.
Overall I think hes doing a better job as a cover for Carrick than I had expected, and Im happy with that. Its a position weve had problems covering adequately in recent seasons.
I'm pretty sure I could've ran the same amount as him tonight, and I'm slightly overweight and haven't bothered running in about two years.
He essentially was playing like Scholes currently does, but without Scholes ridiculously good passing ability. He wasn't bad or anything, just slightly pointless. He did have some good moments though.
He essentially was playing like Scholes currently does, but without Scholes ridiculously good passing ability. He wasn't bad or anything, just slightly pointless. He did have some good moments though.
He certainly hasn't shown the sort of defensive tenacity that he did at his best before the illness. He says all he's lacking is match fitness from playing regularly. I hope that's true, I'd love to see him being a bit more dynamic on defense.
Agree with you mate I love fletcher and he kept the ball well but didn't get near anybody to tackle all game.
The second paragraph puts it aptly for me.
Its great to have him back but I didnt think he was that great. He might had a rather limited role but his passing, movement, energy level is some distance away from his best
Given time, he will gain the confidence and fitness levels to carry him back to his best I am sure. He seems to be playing it safe right now, I don't blame him.
You're being kind actually. He was completely off his game last night. The major weak link last night.
In terms of distance covered Fletch did fine (11km), only Cleverley, Rooney and Van Persie covered more ground. The worrying thing for me is he started playing this way before his absence, it looked like he was trying to adapt his game back then to improve himself as a player or for some tactical reasons but now it looks like this is how he's going to be. It's great to have him back and he is still our most reliable Carrick backup but it's a bit of a shame to think he's peaked already.
Wow I thought he did well and def wasn't the weak link. Like I said our use of the diamond didn't look right to me off the ball, think the two wider midfielders needed to properly tuck in because the way we did it it was pretty much a 442 except one of the midfielders, Rooney, was miles away from his partner, making us a lot more open centrally, always gonna make it tough against a primarily counter attacking team.
On the ball he rarely gave the ball away, looked to link up and played some really good passes to get people in when the short passing game wasn't quite working.
On the ball he rarely gave the ball away, looked to link up and played some really good passes to get people in when the short passing game wasn't quite working.
Either that or Fergie is just trying to restrict him to a more simple job of sticking to his position for the next few games. I am confident that this is all part of Fletcher's long term rehabilitation and we will still see the best of Fletcher in the future. I think both he and Fergie are just happy that he is playing games at the moment.
At the end of the day it is great to have him back. That said a Holding mid with 0 tackles and 1 interception is a concern. When I think about his game last night I am left feeling he was present, but for the most part a passenger.
I don't think we can read too much into his game atm in terms of whether he'll go back to being box to box, the diamond requires someone at the base and that has to be fletcher or carrick and so both will be restricted there. When he gets time in a proper 442 or a 433 we can see of he's kept as the holding player.
Give the guy some time, he was out for the best part of a year with a problem that easily surpasses a football related injury. He has had to fight hard to just get his correct weight back let alone his football form back. Slow process, give him time.
I thought he looked off the pace, I have to say. His passing is fine, but the problem is he's taking too long to pick his passes. He uses one or two extra touches every time, which often means the best choice or the more progressive pass isn't on anymore.
Also, defensively he didn't impose himself really. Cleverley looked to have a lot more bite in him from what we saw yesterday.
And I'm not going to pretend he's not struggled with his disease, but you can't have a place in the team on the basis that you've "done well to get back", you need to earn it, and he's not shown enough so far to suggest he'd be a real option in bigger and more important matches.
Also, defensively he didn't impose himself really. Cleverley looked to have a lot more bite in him from what we saw yesterday.
And I'm not going to pretend he's not struggled with his disease, but you can't have a place in the team on the basis that you've "done well to get back", you need to earn it, and he's not shown enough so far to suggest he'd be a real option in bigger and more important matches.
I thought he was pretty crap, to be honest. Just can't do it in that holding role. This isn't something new either, he's never been able to.
He's doing a decent job of shielding the defence, although his tackling isn't as ferocious as it was.
But his distribution isn't good enough at the moment.
I thought the opposite, his distribution wasn't a problem, he just wasn't protecting the defense enough. There were loads of times when he was left dead by players and didn't have the pace to track them back.
I just think he's too slow on the ball, takes too many touches.
You always know what Fletcher's going to do before he does it. That's a problem, because it makes our distribution from midfield predictable and easy to defend against.
Contrast that to say Cleverley.
I think he's only slow on the ball because he's being limited in that role though. Fletcher isn't a holding midfielder, simple as that, the problem is whether he can ever be that "box-to-box" player again, because of his troubles.
I think it looks like he hasn't got to grips with the speed of the game after his break, really. It affects him defensively as well as on the ball.
Isn't that surprising, but nevertheless it's something we can't really afford against proper opposition. Having your shielding midfielder off the pace can be really costly.
I was very surprised he lasted the full 90. Was my favourite to come off. Like others have said, he didn't really do anything.
I'm glad he's getting game time though, we need to give him every chance possible to regain his best form.
I'm glad he's getting game time though, we need to give him every chance possible to regain his best form.
Wonder why Fergie is only giving him game time in the Champions League? Not even a minute in the PL.
He's too young.
He was the weak link in the middle of the park. Don't get me wrong, he's playing a slightly different role to before and is lacking sharpness, so it's nothing other than you'd expect, but he was quite often too slow to get to where he should be. I'm pleased he's back and he is making progress, but I think maybe people are lowering their expectations of him, because of what he's had to fight back from. Given time I'm sure he'll get there though.
That said, our midfield as a whole looked a lot better than on Saturday, when zombie time arrived again, and Fletcher's performance last night wasn't really any worse than Carrick's "performance" in the first half against Stoke, which consisted of standing there watching the game go on around him.
I dunno I thought he moved the ball well, his long passing was generally excellent, I agree there were moments where he seemed a bit slow which could be frustrating but on the whole I think that was more due to Braga being so compact he was looking for the right pass. As the deep player he had to be restricted in his movement, he couln't be hounding people like we've seen in the past, especially as Braga were breaking from really deep.
I can see why people think his tackling/interception stats were poor but like I said with the way we were executing the diamond there wasn't much he could do. They had 5 in the middle so when they did break, with Rooney playing as an am, and clev/kagawa playing as rm/lm it left us a bit open in the middle and so Fletcher's defensive duty became more about containment until we could get numbers back. It wasn't like they got through loads through our middle. The main problems came from out wide.