Paul Scholes | 2012/13 Performances

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He was fantastic today i kept thinking "how the feck are we going to replace him" as Chris tooloid waddle kept saying " Tottenham have been told to get close to scholes when he has the ball " Its okay saying it ,its another doing it
he was the man of the match by a country fecking mile ,when he eventualy retires which i honestly think may be 2 years time we are fecked!
 
Don't know how are we going to replace him. After the 70th minute or so when our play reverted back to it static, zombie-like self, Scholes was the one who kept forcing the play with his long passes.
 
Xavi broke that record playing for the best international side of all time against one of the worst teams in the Euro's history

Scholes completed that amount of passes against a side who will be challenging for the top 4 and with team mates who were off form.
 
He wasn't poor in the first half, Carrick and Giggs were, and you cannot expect something special from scholes when two players alongside him play as crap.
 
emaveric said:
Glorified him all you want, but us depending on veteran midfielders & still our best player tells alot about ambition
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... or it tells us how fecking good Paul Scholes was and still is, and we're lucky that he's still with us.

There are few midfielders in the Premiership who are still as good as Paul Scholes, and fewer that you can buy in who would do a better job then the one that he does for us, and then there are even fewer still who could play the way he did in the second half.
 
There is nothing to be ashamed, since he would be best central midfielder in almost any other team in the world.
 
I liked this line from the Guardian commentary:

83 min Another Spurs substitution: Tom Huddlestone reaches Dembele, who looks shattered. No surprise: he went to Scholes school in the second half.
 
yeah great second half...but Spurs sitting deep made things a lot easier for him. He got plenty of time on the ball, and in that sort of situation, 37/38 or not...he is still deadly.
 
Lynk said:
Xavi broke that record playing for the best international side of all time against one of the worst teams in the Euro's history

Scholes completed that amount of passes against a side who will be challenging for the top 4 and with team mates who were off form.
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xavi is top class but no way he is going to pass the ball the way scholes does. most of xavi's passes are more short distances. scholes, i mean, most of his passes yesterday were probably 30 40 yards that landed straight to his teammates.

no wonder xavi adores scholes.
 
Shimo said:
2nd goal was on him - as Spurs broke he just jogged back. That's the risk of playing him - he makes us tick but, can be real liability.
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Exactly right. Seeing Dembele just dribble around him like he was a stick of wood was hard to watch.
 
Shimo said:
2nd goal was on him - as Spurs broke he just jogged back. That's the risk of playing him - he makes us tick but, can be real liability.
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Nonsense. Evans positioning, Rafaels poor tracking and Rio getting caught out thanks to the former two things cost us that goal. Scholes probably should have brought Dembele down, but letting a man dribble 2 yards to the side of you that high up the pitch is not the reason we conceded that goal.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Nonsense. Evans positioning, Rafaels poor tracking and Rio getting caught out thanks to the former two things cost us that goal. Scholes probably should have brought Dembele down, but letting a man dribble 2 yards to the side of you that high up the pitch is not the reason we conceded that goal.
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It wasn't all on Scholes but his lack of pace led to the move progressing further then it should have. Tbh I don't blame Scholes I think Fergie etc need to recognize that against teams that will have a go he either needs to pick playing Scholes and then adding a third midfielder at the expense of an attacker or playing wide at the expense of Scholes. Sometimes we can get away with it but in general I don't think it's worth the risk. When teams sit off us like they did after we got back in the game he's still one of the best around but when it's competitive he doesn't have the legs to compete.
 
Ash_G said:
It wasn't all on Scholes but his lack of pace led to the move progressing further then it should have. Tbh I don't blame Scholes I think Fergie etc need to recognize that against teams that will have a go he either needs to pick playing Scholes and then adding a third midfielder at the expense of an attacker or playing wide at the expense of Scholes. Sometimes we can get away with it but in general I don't think it's worth the risk. When teams sit off us like they did after we got back in the game he's still one of the best around but when it's competitive he doesn't have the legs to compete.
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Of course it did, but Dembele powered away from Cleverley many times against Fulham as well didn't he? The only thing Scholes probably should have done is bring him down... but what he did do well at least was run back with him, and I imagine would have picked him up later down the pitch if needs be.

I generally agree with the rest of what you're saying, but to be fair, when you're caught on the break, positioning often goes out of the window. For that 2nd goal, Carrick is caught in almost a left wing position when we lose the ball! So who is to say where the extra man would have been. For those types of situations, I would expect the men who are behind the ball to do a much better job then they did, and Rafael and Evans in particular did not... at all.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Of course it did, but Dembele powered away from Cleverley many times against Fulham as well didn't he? The only thing Scholes probably should have done is bring him down... but what he did do well at least was run back with him, and I imagine would have picked him up later down the pitch if needs be.

I generally agree with the rest of what you're saying, but to be fair, when you're caught on the break, positioning often goes out of the window. For that 2nd goal, Carrick is caught in almost a left wing position when we lose the ball! So who is to say where the extra man would have been. For those types of situations, I would expect the men who are behind the ball to do a much better job then they did, and Rafael and Evans in particular did not... at all.
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Yeah agree and that is part of the problem with our midfield options but I think Anderson would have been a much better option to play yesterday. But that was only an example. In general Scholes gets bypassed in the middle because he lacks the legs to track people on the other hand he takes up better positions defensively than someone like Clev.

Yeah true positioning does go out of the window but if you have 5 in the middle there's usually a lot less room to exploit centrally so we may never have got in to that situation. Additionally as I said having someone with more pace than Scholes would give us a better chance of recovering the situation.

But tbh the threat of Spurs on the counter was always the issue and it was made worse by playing such a wide formation and then using two players who were the least energetic on the pitch and asking them to cover the largest areas of the pitch.
 
I'm really confused right now, because from where I saw, Scholes had a very bad game. Passing statistics aside, because they don't tell us very much about his contribution to the team as a whole, I thought the game went by him very easily. His long balls are as amazing as ever, but they aren't helping us retain possession or creating a goal-threat, so what's the point really?
 
Orton said:
Plays like that when the opposition sit off and let him. In the first when Spurs harried us all over the park and played with lots of energy, Scholes and the rest of them couldn't handle it.
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You really cannot expect a 37 year old Scholes to do it alone. Carrick imo was awful.

So against that Spurs midfield, it was impossible for 1 player to take on all of them.

Scholes was our best player yesterday apart from Rooney imo.
 
Andrew~ said:
I'm really confused right now, because from where I saw, Scholes had a very bad game. Passing statistics aside, because they don't tell us very much about his contribution to the team as a whole, I thought the game went by him very easily. His long balls are as amazing as ever, but they aren't helping us retain possession or creating a goal-threat, so what's the point really?
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Those passes were always to the wings, and our crosses were headed out time after time. The ony exception being Rooney's assist which was a quick move.
 
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:drool:

And I don't see why people are whining about Scholes... Okay, so he and Carrick on their own are easily bypassed as they aren't that quick on the turn, but when we're in possession he's still the best in the league at keeping us ticking, switching play, and getting us going. An utter legend. RvP had him as MOTM for the Southampton turn-around, and he was also key to our actually doing enough to get into the game against Liverpool, shambolic though we were as a whole.

Fair enough, Ando and Cleverley deserve more chances, and him and Giggs together is asking for trouble, but Scholes has been sheer class.
 
it's not scholes fault we get overrun. it's carrick's to be honest.

sell carrick, buy marchisio and vidal.

You put carrick next to pirlo and the same shit would happen. Juve get away with it by having willing and able workhorses who are also feckin class.

I'm sure part of pirlo's rejuvenation at juve is down to the energy and class of his midfield partners.

----Scholes----
March---vidal

we'd piss the league and romp through most of europe.
 
Eikrem on Scholes, before Moldes game against Stuttgart:

-I've played a few international matches, and I know how good the best players in Europe are. But I will never meet anybody as good as Paul Scholes, that's just how it is.
 
As good as scholes is on the ball, he is completely negated when off the ball.

Anybody with a bit of fitness about them just strolls passed him now, its extremely dangerous and makes the other centre mid and players get dragged out of position far too often.

If scholes is to be played, we have to play 3 in midfield. It will suit his game, and also will allow him to have a bit of cover if he does lose the ball.

I love scholes as much as the next man, but i can see that sometimes his ability on the ball just isnt outwaying the inability to recover posession.

Sure he can make a few last ditch tackles, but like against city in the F.A cup, if we are losing the posession battle he is literally a passenger and a danger to the team.

We need to trust Anderson and Cleverley more, its ridiculous asking us to put so much on a 38 year old whos legs are not the same the used to be.
 
Thing is if we want to use scholes that's fine but against teams that we know will attack us we need to adapt for his limitations. Expecting to cover half of midfield against ambitous energetic teams is just too much. I thought it was pretty funny that against spurs a team we know have quality, stretch the pitch and play with high energy we asked scholes an giggs to cover as big an area of the pitch as you could ask and played in a way that made us as wide as we could, where as against cluj, whom we expected to sit back, play narrow etc we played a narrow system with highly energetic players.
 
Ash_G said:
Thing is if we want to use scholes that's fine but against teams that we know will attack us we need to adapt for his limitations. Expecting to cover half of midfield against ambitous energetic teams is just too much. I thought it was pretty funny that against spurs a team we know have quality, stretch the pitch and play with high energy we asked scholes an giggs to cover as big an area of the pitch as you could ask and played in a way that made us as wide as we could, where as against cluj, whom we expected to sit back, play narrow etc we played a narrow system with highly energetic players.
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Do you think Scholes would have been able to play midweek after playing over the weekend? Rotation system which means he will probably play over the weekend again, but without Giggs this time, I think , maybe.

Another point, who's "we" that you refer to in your post Ash?
 
Bloxy said:
Do you think Scholes would have been able to play midweek after playing over the weekend? Rotation system which means he will probably play over the weekend again, but without Giggs this time, I think , maybe.

Another point, who's "we" that you refer to in your post Ash?
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Nah the point I was making was that it was odd that in the game we knew would be high energy we played scholes and in the one that was going to be at a slower pace we left him out.

I said we because its just a general comment. If you want specifics fergie stated just before kick off or half time, can't remember which that he had expected the game to be the way he did an knew they'd sit back, be narrow etc and wait for a counter
 
Ash_G said:
Nah the point I was making was that it was odd that in the game we knew would be high energy we played scholes and in the one that was going to be at a slower pace we left him out.

I said we because its just a general comment. If you want specifics fergie stated just before kick off or half time, can't remember which that he had expected the game to be the way he did an knew they'd sit back, be narrow etc and wait for a counter
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That's a good point, I think. We may well have been better off switching our first XI for those two games, I think it would have improved our chances.

My sense is that Scholes and Carrick are considered first choice right now, and so they'll play the tougher games, though of course that could change.

I'm with you on playing Scholes in a 3 man midfield, I don't even mind having Carrick part of it, as long as Cleverley, Anderson or Fletcher is there to do massive amounts of running on defense.

In the 4231 we end up needing Rooney to be that third midfielder on defense and while he's decent at it, he's often unable to provide cover because he's so far up the pitch.
 
gooDevil said:
That's a good point, I think. We may well have been better off switching our first XI for those two games, I think it would have improved our chances.

My sense is that Scholes and Carrick are considered first choice right now, and so they'll play the tougher games, though of course that could change.

I'm with you on playing Scholes in a 3 man midfield, I don't even mind having Carrick part of it, as long as Cleverley, Anderson or Fletcher is there to do massive amounts of running on defense.

In the 4231 we end up needing Rooney to be that third midfielder on defense and while he's decent at it, he's often unable to provide cover because he's so far up the pitch.
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Thing is I don't think there's anything that wrong with Scholes being first choice but not acknowledging his limitations is really odd imo. I mean against Spurs like I said we seemed to not even factor in how much more energy and speed they had and even decided to go with giggs as well to further put more demand on our midfield.

If we're playing a team that will sit off or are dominating and need something extra, Scholes is great either to start in the former or come on in the latter situation. But what we asked him to do and seemingly still want him to do just doesn't seem to be realistic. Last season towards the end we didn't have a choice over playing him but this year we do and if we do want him to start then at least we should ackowledge his drawbacks and adapt the formation. It wouldn't even have to be that drastic, as you said you can drop a striker deeper to be a third midfielder and then just don't get the wingers to be as rigidly wide as they typically are.
 
no one could question scholes ability

reality is that if he plays he should play alongside 2 from Carrick/Fletcher/Anderson/Cleverley

my team away to Newcastle would be

Lindegard

Rafael - Rio - Evans - Evra

Carrick - Cleverley - Scholes

Nani - RVP - Rooney

I'd play Fletcher if he was fit enough to play again and use Scholes from the bench - we'll win this game with the right team
 
Scholes has been a liability today, anybody else and he would of been sent off by now.

Soon he will cost us its bad for him and us.
 
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