Tom Cleverley | 2012-14 Performances

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The drop off in midfield was fairly dramatic in the second half. Not only in our ball retention but also in our ability to press. I guess it's not Cleverley's fault that he's not half the player that Jones is - pity for him that the two halves made it so obvious.
 
The drop off in midfield was fairly dramatic in the second half. Not only in our ball retention but also in our ability to press. I guess it's not Cleverley's fault that he's not half the player that Jones is - pity for him that the two halves made it so obvious.
That's an unnessecary dig at Cleverley. He is a fine footballer and keeping the ball is a real strength of his. To say that he is half the player is very harsh and in my opinion, is hard to judge as they are completely different players.

On your point about pressing though, we have learnt not to do that against Arsenal, we kept our shape on Sunday and it worked. It might not have looked an all action display from Cleverley in terms of hard tackling and interceptions but he was constantly blocking passing lanes and channels for Arsenal. He did his job well enough.
 
The drop off in midfield was fairly dramatic in the second half. Not only in our ball retention but also in our ability to press. I guess it's not Cleverley's fault that he's not half the player that Jones is - pity for him that the two halves made it so obvious.

Cleverley's pressing is actually one of his best attributes. I've always thought he would look good in a team where they press high and in numbers because he often does it on his own anyway (as does Kagawa).
To call him "not half the player Jones is" is silly and unnecessarily harsh. The tactics changed in the second half, having Jones was important as Carrick wasn't fully fit, so having someone else to close space and win the ball back was important in the first half, and we allowed them to have the ball in less dangerous areas in the second. Cleverley didn't let our levels drop and I don't think he can be criticised given that he hardly gave the ball away. The fact that he didn't win it as much as Jones is fairly predictable as he is far less defensive.
 
The drop off in midfield was fairly dramatic in the second half. Not only in our ball retention but also in our ability to press. I guess it's not Cleverley's fault that he's not half the player that Jones is - pity for him that the two halves made it so obvious.


Cleverley > Jones
 
Currently Cleverley is a very tidy player who's got a fair bit in his locker. His ball retention is good, but he's not the kind of player like Jones.
Cleverley is definitely a good player who tons of ability, who will no doubt grow into the role of a great CM. He's only going to improve with time.
Sadly, you could see the drop off in midfield when Jones came off. Arsenal had tons more room in the middle and it was obvious that Jones was simply covering more ground than Cleverley.
Combined, they're good , and with practice could develop into a real strong pairing. Add Kagawa to trio like that and it could turn into something good.
(Some might not agree obviously, but I feel we need to play with 3 in the middle nowadays).
 
Currently Cleverley is a very tidy player who's got a fair bit in his locker. His ball retention is good, but he's not the kind of player like Jones.
Cleverley is definitely a good player who tons of ability, who will no doubt grow into the role of a great CM. He's only going to improve with time.
Sadly, you could see the drop off in midfield when Jones came off. Arsenal had tons more room in the middle and it was obvious that Jones was simply covering more ground than Cleverley.
Combined, they're good , and with practice could develop into a real strong pairing. Add Kagawa to trio like that and it could turn into something good.
(Some might not agree obviously, but I feel we need to play with 3 in the middle nowadays).
What does he have in his locker? To me he seems a tidy all rounder who excels at pretty much nothing.
 
What does he have in his locker? To me he seems a tidy all rounder who excels at pretty much nothing.

I meant it as in that while he's a tidy player, he does have ability, and a fair bit of it. He's doesn't excel at much, but I think he's got great positional awareness.
 
I meant it as in that while he's a tidy player, he does have ability, and a fair bit of it. He's doesn't excel at much, but I think he's got great positional awareness.
At what? Not to be a smart-arse or anything, but I can't really think of many things he has great ability at. Not remotely creative, decent excel defensively, decent shot, never dribbles, tidy passer but very cautious. Whether he has the ability or not, he certainly doesn't show it.
 
At what? Not to be a smart-arse or anything, but I can't really think of many things he has great ability at. Not remotely creative, decent excel defensively, decent shot, never dribbles, tidy passer but very cautious. Whether he has the ability or not, he certainly doesn't show it.

His defensive ability for starters is an ability to be noted. He's a sensible tackler, he's positionally aware, and has the potential to protect the back 4 very well.
I probably should have said something else for my posts, as I agree, he hasn't got any top class ability. I just want to see him succeed and can be a little biased.
 
What does he have in his locker? To me he seems a tidy all rounder who excels at pretty much nothing.

Most decent (enough) midfielders in truth are very even players in my experience, they get 6 or 7 /10 on most boxes and that's how I'd describe Cleverley, I think we've made a good enough squad player in him and if he does decide to build on that and start showing us why we were excited then all the better for it.

For what it's worth, if I had to choose something he excelled at, it would be vision, quite usually he's aware of where he is and who's around him, I just feel his feet don't always transpose that quick enough :lol:
 
His defensive ability for starters is an ability to be noted. He's a sensible tackler, he's positionally aware, and has the potential to protect the back 4 very well.
I probably should have said something else for my posts, as I agree, he hasn't got any top class ability. I just want to see him succeed and can be a little biased.
I'd love if he did succeed, and I guess he is be default, because of the lack of quality in our midfield. it's not like he puts in bad performances for us, he just never puts in really good ones. He'll be totally on the fringes if we do sort the midfield out, and we will, eventually.
 
His defensive ability for starters is an ability to be noted. He's a sensible tackler, he's positionally aware, and has the potential to protect the back 4 very well.
I probably should have said something else for my posts, as I agree, he hasn't got any top class ability. I just want to see him succeed and can be a little biased.

So you'd agree that currently at least, he doesn't excel at any of these?
 
The problem as I see it with Cleverley is that I can't see where he fits into our team in our current setup. Call it 4-2-3-1, 4-4-1-1 or 4-4-2, we play with 2 central midfielders and normally a #10 playing off the main striker.
As a result, out two central midfielders play primarily a holding, defensive role to allow our forwards and wingers (and fullbacks) more freedom to attack.

Cleverley is a well rounded CM with a more emphasis on attacking than defending. He is not yet of a sufficient calibre to play the #10 role as he lacks flair and creativity for me, plus we are already well stocked with options for that position.
However, Cleverley similarly isn't defensively minded enough to really play the holding role in the midfield pair.

This is what it boils down to for me and why he has appeared to be disappointing and average when he has played recently. I suspect if he went to a team like Arsenal or Barcelona (not saying he is Xavi quality, but just in terms of the system they play) I imagine he would put in far better performances. He is ideally suited to being one of two more advanced CMs in a midfield three, with a dedicated DM behind him.
 
Cleverley has several good attributes.

He is good at passing and moving and whilst it's perceived as a basic skill, our team as a whole is poor at it. When he releases the ball he moves into space giving his team mates an option to pass back to, or his movement opens up space for his team mates. He keeps the tempo of the game high, isn't one of our ponderous passers who dwell on the ball too long before passing after the opposition have organised themselves behind the ball. In that sense his good movement makes us less static. He is good at receiving the ball in tight spaces, and often still completes his passes when being pressed. He might not do the flashy bits but he keeps us ticking. He presses the ball well, sometimes it's ineffective when he does it on his own as it looks like he's chasing lost causes but we as a team would benefit if it was something we did collectively on a regular basis imo. Sunderland game he completed most tackles in the PL that weekend and it's another facet he has to his game that he is very good at and probably should do more as he's very good at it.

One thing I'd like him to do is to be a bit more authoritative. But that will probably come with confidence. Around the time when he was being selected for every England game and receiving praise from the media he wanted the ball all of the time and always had his arms outstretched asking for the ball back, that seems to have reduced a bit but I don't see the 'hiding' that some people in here talk of. He's often one of our two or three highest passers when he plays so I don't buy that claim but he maybe isn't as bold as we have seen him in the past.

We we shouldn't be so short-sighted as he has a lot of good qualities and we should learn from the Arsenal fans giving Ramsey abuse last season, just look at him now. There's still rooms for improvement from Cleverley and I hope in that in Carrick's absence he really rises to the challenge because him and Jones might be first choice in the interim and I hope to see him be a little bit more imposing.
 
At what? Not to be a smart-arse or anything, but I can't really think of many things he has great ability at. Not remotely creative, decent excel defensively, decent shot, never dribbles, tidy passer but very cautious. Whether he has the ability or not, he certainly doesn't show it.
Completely agree. He isn't that good at anything (except passing the ball to Carrick and to CB), while at times he is okay at most of the things. Hopefully he'll become a good squad player (which at the moment he isn't IMO) but that's the upper bound of my expectations to him. If he doesn't improve (especially at his creativity), I think that he'll be in a difficult position when we finally improve our midfield.

Saying that, I think thay he has played ok/decent in the last two games ad oppossed to the game vs Stoke when he pretty much was inexistent. Hopefully he won't drop in quality again, cause these two last performances is IMO the minimum to be expected from a quality United midfielder.
 
Hopefully he'll become a good squad player (which at the moment he isn't IMO) but that's the upper bound of my expectations to him.
Surely not serious?

Can you define what a good squad player is in your eyes?

Cleverley cost the club nothing, doesn't pick up a massive wage, can be a starter, proved that last season in a championship winning team playing 30+ games. He is a great player to have in the squad, I'm really interested to see your reasoning as to why he isn't a good squad player at the moment...
 
Surely not serious?

Can you define what a good squad player is in your eyes?

Cleverley cost the club nothing, doesn't pick up a massive wage, can be a starter, proved that last season in a championship winning team playing 30+ games. He is a great player to have in the squad, I'm really interested to see your reasoning as to why he isn't a good squad player at the moment...
Dont waste your time, seriously....
 
Surely not serious?

Can you define what a good squad player is in your eyes?

Cleverley cost the club nothing, doesn't pick up a massive wage, can be a starter, proved that last season in a championship winning team playing 30+ games. He is a great player to have in the squad, I'm really interested to see your reasoning as to why he isn't a good squad player at the moment...

Park, O'Shea, Fletcher, Chicharito, Welbeck(at times) are/were good squad players. If you look at other teams (not necessarily now) then there are the likes of Keita, Thiago, Mascherano at Barca for example good squad players. Players that can replace other players without dropping the quality of the team.

Cleverley at the moment isn't IMO. Of course our quality doesn't drop when he plays but this is because our other options are probably even worse, which has more to do with the quality of our midfield than his quality. Look in another point of view, if we release him today, do you think that any of Barca, Madrid, BVB, Bayern, Juve etc would be interested on him or would he make the bench of any of those teams? I think that the answer is no to both of these questions. Continuing from that I think that he's a United player only because we have a very weak midfield and he is local.But should this be enough and would he have been playing for us if we had the midfield of 2008 (Scholes, Carrick, Hargreaves, Fletcher and the young Ando)?

I agree that he cost nothing and stuff like that is important, but if we finally sign two good midfielders and he doesn't significantly increase his quality, he'll have trouble staying here IMO. Hopefully he is a late boomer, something that I have heard him being called many times here, though I have no idea where does that come from.
 
So if O'shea or Welbeck were released, you think Barca would snap them up? How does Cleverley not being good enough for Barca or Madrid make him a poor squad player at United?

Where you mention the first list of players being good squad players and then able to come in and not let the quality drop. In the next parargraph you say that our quality doesn't drop when Cleverley comes in.

To me and many here, you just have a think against Cleverley, that's fine people have players they rate and don't rate but I'm sorry to say, your reasoning just doesn't add up.

Cleverley isn't a world class player, no way but a squad doesn't need to be full of world class players. Players like Cleverley are crucial to squads over the length of a season.
 
So if O'shea or Welbeck were released, you think Barca would snap them up? How does Cleverley not being good enough for Barca or Madrid make him a poor squad player at United?

Where you mention the first list of players being good squad players and then able to come in and not let the quality drop. In the next parargraph you say that our quality doesn't drop when Cleverley comes in.

To me and many here, you just have a think against Cleverley, that's fine people have players they rate and don't rate but I'm sorry to say, your reasoning just doesn't add up.

Cleverley isn't a world class player, no way but a squad doesn't need to be full of world class players. Players like Cleverley are crucial to squads over the length of a season.
The general case is that a squad playe shouldn't be far off in quality from the other players who play there, but I think that our midfield is an exception. A lot of midfielders from EPL could do that for us. Heck, I believe that the majority here agree that Cabaye is a better player than him, and even him isn't that grea and I doubt he could make the bench of the teams I mentioned.

I believe that if we want to compete with the best teams we should have players of similar quality to them and at the moment he isn't. Will he become or not is something different.

Him and Welbeck have different treatments here. Lynk has been crucified in Welbeck thread for writting harsh truth. If Ando would have played as bad as Cleverley against Stoke, I'll bet that half of Caf would have asked for his head.
 
In an ideal world, you have a point, in reality though, we are a football club and you are not going to have world class back ups all over the pitch. United has been built on having players like Cleverley in the squad and as a United fan I'm pleased to see that continue.
 
I think he does seem to have struggled to kick in since the early promise. People will cite him being a surprise package but I think there's more to it than that. He's doing the things he did very well early on his his united career. His quick thinking and decision making really did stand out whereas I don't feel it is at the moment. He just seems normal in that aspect which isn't the best given it looked like his main strength.

But I do think he needs to be given time and patience. This is a learning phase for him and let's see if he can build on the good qualities he does have and add a few more here and there. I think he can make for a good squad player if he works hard and develops as a footballer.
 
The general case is that a squad playe shouldn't be far off in quality from the other players who play there, but I think that our midfield is an exception. A lot of midfielders from EPL could do that for us. Heck, I believe that the majority here agree that Cabaye is a better player than him, and even him isn't that grea and I doubt he could make the bench of the teams I mentioned.

I believe that if we want to compete with the best teams we should have players of similar quality to them and at the moment he isn't. Will he become or not is something different.

Him and Welbeck have different treatments here. Lynk has been crucified in Welbeck thread for writting harsh truth. If Ando would have played as bad as Cleverley against Stoke, I'll bet that half of Caf would have asked for his head.

Seriously? All you have to throw at him is one game on his return from injury where he looked a bit off the pace? He's been playing well before that and looked really really good in the game against Sunderland before he was injured. Some perspective is necessary.

He might not be world class and flashy, but I believe he will be a good little player for us over his career. Give him chance too because he isn't the finished article yet.
 
He needs to shoot and score more. Carrick too, but we have all accepted that it is just not part of his game.

We can't keep relying on Rooney, RVP and Chicharito to score all the time.

Other than that, he is a good player who needs to impose himself on the game more but that will come. He can keep the ball well, is not afraid of being pressed, and is very mobile.
 
Seriously? All you have to throw at him is one game on his return from injury where he looked a bit off the pace? He's been playing well before that and looked really really good in the game against Sunderland before he was injured. Some perspective is necessary.

He might not be world class and flashy, but I believe he will be a good little player for us over his career. Give him chance too because he isn't the finished article yet.

I'll gladly take this. I don't see him taking big enough strides to become anything more than a squad man for us - but if he turns into a reliable option in the middle, well, that's great actually. We'll always need players like that - and him coming from our own ranks, he's more likely to settle for a squad role too.

If Cleverley and Fellaini can establish themselves as consistently competent alternatives in the middle, we are just one player away from looking pretty bloody decent in that department going into next season: New Man (top class), Carrick (top class veteran), Cleverley (competent option, still young enough to develop further), Fellaini (ditto) and as an option for those special clashes: Jones (Phil Jones, GHE). That ain't too shabby.
 
He looks good when the team is playing well, but he just doesn't seem to be able to influence those around him or have much of an impact when we're playing poorly. That's not good enough for a CM that's starting games for us, Carrick absent or not.
 
He belongs at a team like Everton. Just not good enough. He's getting games simply because we are so short of options in midfield.
 
Disastrous performance. He'd have to do something truly marvelous to salvage this display.
 
A bit of a nothing player, though that's been apparent for a while. He might make it as a squad player here but that's about it. Scary to think he's arguably our second best cm.

Anyway, I'm sure some people will say his great qualities are just too subtle for your average football fan to see, or compare him to Carrick (who overcame the "he does nothing" doubters). Except Cleverley actually fits that description.

Still, this was a particularly poor display so let's not judge him on this game alone either.
 
I have always rated Anderson above him, I simply think he brings more to our game. He's not a positive player at all, and doesn't ad anything in terms of defense or creativity.
 
Cleverley's worst game in a United shirt. Be lucky to play again anytime soon if Carrick and Jones recover quickly.
 
Don't know what Fergie ever saw in him to be honest. One great display alongside Anderson against City in the charity shield is the best highlight I can think of.

That's not exactly true, he developed well through the Academy and when given his chance in the first team, he started very brightly, not just in that Charity Shield game. The whole beginning of that season was great from him, and then the injury ruined his season, and since then he just hasn't progressed like he should have. He's looking more and more like a mid table team player, and it annoys me to say that.
 
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