That's just part of Arsenal's problem, they also have a questionable mentality but I think players like Ramsey and Wilshere are an improvement.
Scotty Parker anyone?
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That's just part of Arsenal's problem, they also have a questionable mentality but I think players like Ramsey and Wilshere are an improvement.
They are both great players, but opponents will set out to deny them space and prevent them from being at their most effective. Someone like Parker and the contribution he regularly provides would surely give them a better chance of being able to counter such an approach.
At present when we attack we are open through the middle unless Carrick plays, and under intense pressure Carrick and fletcher do not win many of those physical battles as last year's away form indicated. Parker's approach would have helped us gain better control more often imo and for that reason alone he would make us more effective.
I actually disagree with Amolbhatia on this point, i think Parker and Carrick would be a good pairing as 2 holding players with cleverley in front. This type of platform would leave us better prepared when our full backs surged forward.
I think he would have done a good enough job here for us.
When you look at the form of the likes of Carrick, Fletcher and Anderson, Parker is doing more than enough to get a look in amongst them at the moment.
When you look at the form of the likes of Carrick, Fletcher and Anderson, Parker is doing more than enough to get a look in amongst them at the moment.
Only cost Spurs £5.5m.
looking like a bargain.
looking like a bargain.
As i said, to do the dirty work behind talented players like modric and VDV at spurs, he's perfect. To be the main man in midfield at a club like west ham, he
's good enough again.
but, if he were to join us, as you said, it'd be as a combative DM. we already have carrick there and i rate him. i think a midfield of him and cleverley with rooney just ahead of them would form a great 3. Good passers, good movement between the 2 further forward and all 3 willing to help out in defence(carrick obviously shielding the defence).
as it is, i see no need for a player of parker's quality. better players with genuinely quality, wouldnt say no. we do need genuine class at CM.
Which is why i said he's good over the course of the season with performances on both sides of that level during the course of it. None of our midfielders are great on a consistent basis. Parker would perhaps be a consistent DM, i think carrick can be that too. he just needs to be played there with the 2 i mentioned ahead of him. he's great at protecting the back 4. not every team needs a destroyer. there are other ways to stop the opponents. carrick is great at it.
Nobody's slagging off parker as shite. but people rate him for what he is. the same would have been the case for fletch or carrick had they been at other clubs. I dont think, as i've already said, there are too many here who'd name any of our midfielders(barring carrick possibly) as possible buys to solve our midfield problems had they been at other clubs. none of them have been that good on a consistent basis.
That does not mean Parker cuts the mustard though. at his best, he might be an improvement considering how inconsistent our own CMs have been. but, again, we should be aiming higher.
I'd be very disappointed if we dont buy a CM in the next couple of windows. With our pretty evident interest in signing nasri and sneijder over the summer, i dont think its unreasonable to assume that we will be targeting other players. As i said, an improvement is a must. but, parker isnt the level we should be striving for. if we do get into the market in jan, it should be for players of higher quality. seeing that i believe we will buy, parker isnt the level am striving for.
i hope am making myself clear now.
Parker has only recently played as a pure DM. he had a more all round role at west ham. which is why the comparisons with fletch i think.
As i already said, i do think reinforcements are required. seeing that we did try and sign players over the summer, i think we'l try again. i just hope its players better than parker(good at what he does as he is).
Sidwell was free and he played him off the park today.
The hell he did. Unless you mean giving him a smack in the face.
This is turning into a saga.
Sidwell and Murphy outplayed Modric and Parker.
The majority of Fulham's play came from the wings and from set-pieces. So I don't think Sidwell and Murphy outplayed anyone.
I hope their midfield play us off the park when we meet, as long as we win 1-3 mind.
Well i rate him too, but the bottom line is he does not perform to his capabilities often enough. Waiting for serial under performers to come good is why we are now in this situation. In an ideal world everything you say is correct, but in reality it is this lack of consistency that has brought us to the point where we need more reliable players, even if they are not vastly superior technically.
No we need reliability, we need players who can be relied upon to perform at their best more often than not. The problem with the players we have is not a lack of quality, if they played near their best form every week we would probably not be having this debate. The fact they do not is the reason why they are deemed not good enough.
Carrick is not great at it, he can be. But generally he is not great at it, especially away from OT. Parker would be great at it, and probably great at it 7 times out of ten as opposed to the 3 out of ten you get with Carrick. More consistency is the way to improvement, not just adding class. Class is pointless without consistency, it becomes an occasional bonus rather than a weekly benefit.
Which is why they need replacing for more reliable players.
Well welcome to the disappointment i have felt every transfer window since Ronaldo and Tevez left. There is no evidence to suggest we are going to buy anybody at the level you seem to think we need to improve. Why wouldn't i want that too? My point is based around the fact, if we are to shop in the bargain basement, the 'value' signing of Parker would have brought steel and reliability to a midfield regularly lacking both.
To some maybe, but there are more than a few on here who see Fletcher as a defensive player and therefore use that inaccurate premise as justification for not needing Parker.
Yes we didn't seem to try hard enough in my book. Let me ask you a question.
Considering we have bought 2 players for £27m to strengthen a defence, that is already widely regarded as the best in Europe, what possible logic can determine that an already strong defence needed strengthening more than a regularly underperforming midfield who have been inconsistent for years, and have lost the only real class we had in Scholes?
Fabregas, Sneijder, Modric, whoever. I am less than convinced we will pay what is necessary to bring in a player of the quality you covet, in the meantime reliable players like Parker would have provided a small improvement for relatively little cost. Which to me is much more preferable than our current policy of no improvement whatsoever.
What about the signings of
Smalling
Jones
De Gae
Young
Hernandez
suggests we're shopping the bargin basement?
Surely what we've done in the past few windows suggests we're more than willing to sign the right player if they are available.
Parker isn't the right player.
Just because Carrick, Fletcher and Anderson aren't playing well enough (or aren't good enough) isn't reason to buy another player who isn't good enough (even if he is performing better) - that seems a bit short-sighted. Isn't that a knee-jerk reaction?
So signing lots of young players with bags of potential, capable of playing in the first team leaves you disappointed and you dont see winning the league and getting to a CL final as much success....
Anyone gonna say it?
Eyepopper feck off with your sarcasm! If you don't agree then fine, but don't try and twist my words to make me look like i am being unreasonable.
I have never slagged off our signings, all of my posts in this thread are regarding the lack of signings in midfield since 2007, and to point out to those like Varun, who are still expecting us to sign a midfield superstar in every new window. I was expecting a similar signing for a long time and have been disappointed in every window since Ronaldo left, that is my point, don't try and make it into something it isn't.
No its called improvement, signing someone who can be relied upon to do his job week after week, will improve the team. Consistency is the key Brwned.
Parker may be no better than Fletcher or Carrick, but he does his job very well and reproduces close to his best form regularly. He improves the effectiveness of the teams he plays in. Generally, can the same be said for Carrick and Fletcher?
Persisting with players who do not perform well week after week, and have not done for a long time is stagnating our play, which is why we have not improved, and we will not improve if we keep on playing these unreliable players in ineffective pairings.
Parker would be a decent short term solution.apotheosis isn't seeing him as THE midfielder to sort out our midfield issues for a long time.
United could only have gotten (even marginally) stronger with Parker.
United could only have gotten (even marginally) stronger with Parker.
At last! Thank you kouroux! Exactly! A marginal improvement in reliability if not in quality is still an improvement, and would be of more benefit to the general effectiveness of the team, than our current policy of no improvement at all!
Interesting that over the same few days we've had lengthy arguments about Pogba not getting enough opportunities we've also got people arguing that we should have given a contract to a thirty something bloke who will "marginally" improve our midfield. Having cake and eating it springs to mind.
Bottom line is still the same though Pogue, serial underperformers out! Reliable players or youngsters in!
For me almost any scenario that does not include the same predictable and limited pairings that have held us back for the past 2 seasons at least, is even if not an improvement, at least a step in the right direction.
To be fair to Parker he does seem to have a lot of character and brings his best more often than not. If our midfielders did that as well as him this discussion wouldnt be taking place. Cleverleys the only one who looks switched on almost every game. But thats also based on just a few games.
You think getting rid of seasoned campaigners like Carrick and/or Fletcher in the same summer we're losing the experience of Scholes, Neville, O'Shea, Brown and Hargreaves is a good idea? To replace them with someone who's never played in a team pushing for a league title and will "marginally" improve our squad at best? Interesting.
I don't think Fergie would agree. Which explains why they're still here.
I don't think Fergie would agree. Which explains why they're still here.
No, not at all. But then again i never thought it was a good idea to let Scholes retire before considering buying an alternative. But there you go.
By the way i supported the potential signing of Parker as i believe we would benefit from a reliable, more combative DM alternative to Carrick, especially away from OT.
So i have not advocated getting rid of anybody, only putting forward my case for the benefit of a reliable performer like Parker.
Out of the first team, not the club! Carrick and Fletcher can still be valuable squad members, but if we want to improve i think we need better quality and more reliable performers than they, in the first team.
As i said i have never advcocated getting rid of any of our players.
I'm not saying we really should have signed Parker.I'm just against the idea that his hypothetical signing would have brought nothing to United.
It can be argued that from a financial point of view, it may not be worth but at least on the football side of things, I have no doubt Parker could have been useful
For me its about levels of performance. Anderson and Carrick in particular just don't perform well enough often enough for my liking. Fletcher had issues last season with injuires but you could put him in the same boat.
While clearly Scott Parker is no world beater he has performed well over the last few years and some may think has the hunger and desire to perhaps take a shot at really making it at the top level. Hence I can see why people would have seen him as a viable option.
In my opinion you occaisionally need an injection of fresh blood just to shake things up and give the team something different. Currently the midfield (with the obvious exception of Cleverly who has performed well) look stagnant and regularly devoid of ideas.
Agree with that. Not sure Parker would add ideas to your midfield however - but you could do with a player like him to add some steel to your midfield, and it would freshen you up.
Wasn't Parker at Chelsea when they won the league title? if so I'd classify that as someone playing in a team pushing for a league title...
He only played about 10 games in total and mostly as a sub.
I still though believe he would have been a good quick fix solution to our squad this season. Cheap too.
We could have done worse
I still though believe he would have been a good quick fix solution to our squad this season. Cheap too.
We could have done worse
In 04-05?
4 league appearances all season. That's "playing for a team pushing for a league title" in it's very loosest sense
Aye when he left it was a master stroke to replace him with Sidwell, seamless it was.
Cool you made it through the night.
Sitwell more like - he did a great job on the bench keeping the lads entertained with his radioactive ginger barnet!
Shitwell over Parker on Sunday.
Well look at the effect Cleverley's inclusion had on the performance of the whole team in the first few matches. This team showed then it had the capacity to play at a level much higher than we have witnessed last season.
I'll bet before the season started, Cleverley's inclusion would have been brushed off by most as offering nothing of notable significance. But the impact a different type of pairing had on the whole team was amazing really.
I think it is difficult to predict how much of an effect a potential signing will or will not have. I believe all you can do is look for areas that can be improved and sign someone who can help solve that issue. I looked at our away form and the reasons for it, and determined Parker with his attitude, consistency and for such a nominal fee, would have been an ideal DM alternative to Carrick, especially for games away from OT.