Need better quality in midfield. He would be good for a team like Villa but sadly not for us.
Tom Cleverley | 2014/15 Performances (on loan at Aston Villa)
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Decent performance tonight. Good pass to Shaw for Mata's goal and he did okay defensively as well.
He's a neat and tidy player with the ball at his feet. He'll be a good squad player in this system.
He's a neat and tidy player with the ball at his feet. He'll be a good squad player in this system.
I thought he did ok, played a part in the goal and chased hard, still not enough to be a starter for us, cup game CM for me.
Good performance from Tom. Got stuck in without conceding lots of freekicks, involved in the build-up for Lingard's goal.
I do think he's vulnerable if a big name central midfielder arrives. Overall Fletcher has outperformed him on this tour. Hard to see a 5th choice midfielder getting much playing time in this system, in a season without CL.
I do think he's vulnerable if a big name central midfielder arrives. Overall Fletcher has outperformed him on this tour. Hard to see a 5th choice midfielder getting much playing time in this system, in a season without CL.
Good performance. Don't think he is good enough in defense or attack to ever nail down a consistent starting place in this formation in the either of the two deeper lying positions.
Showed a real turn of pace to chase down Henderson at one point, I actually thought it was Shaw.
let's not go that far
I'd rather we gave Cup games to Pearson and Rothwell if it's come to that.
It will be interesting to see what van Gaal thinks of him.
With the right motivation and teammates I think he could improve markedly.
Squadie.
He also put the ball over the top to Young that was fed into Kagawa and went to Lingard for his goal.
He still lacks a bit of grit to play in that position IMO.
He's just too flat doesn't change or set tempos. I just don't see enough guile to make it worth him staying in the squad. We need another CM badly.
A bit better this time around but he's still deferring to every other United player on the pitch, which doesn't bode well when your midfield partner is Jesse Lingard.
Hasn’t done himself many favours on tour, looked very ordinary, even his better passes are ones that he should be making and he doesn’t play them often enough, nowhere near the standard required to be a starter and he returns home the 3rd choice cm on the tour and with Carrick, Fellaini and possibly a new signing all to be included as well he is probably 5th choice at best. Could be on his way if we receive a decent offer.
He is a decent back up but personally I would like to see Pearson and Rothwell given chances to see what they can do. Tom has had enough chances
Two second assists
Sometimes I wonder why some on here actually watch football to begin with. It's as though they're watching just to get wound up and spit bile all over the internet. I personally will never understand it, it makes it near to impossible to see any sense or reason about a footballer. Even when he does something decent, it doesn't register.
He played well, made some great forward passes that led to two of our goals. Put in some tackles and didn't make many misplaced passes, kept us ticking over in midfield against Liverpool. Won't stop some wankers giving him a 5 rating though! 
He played well, made some great forward passes that led to two of our goals. Put in some tackles and didn't make many misplaced passes, kept us ticking over in midfield against Liverpool. Won't stop some wankers giving him a 5 rating though!
Clev could score an overhead kick from 60 yards out and people would still miss it. This poor guy will never be appreciated by the majority of football fans because everyone now has the preconceived idea that he is amazingly shit. There was 2 pages of "
That ball by Herrera" when Rooney scored the first goal and then there wasn't a single post of appreciation for Cleverley spotting Shaw in space which led to the Mata goal. Infact, I noted down around the 67th page directly after the goal someone wrote "I don't know why Cleverley attempts longballs". The bit of interplay which freed Young down the right was not acknowledged in the match day thread either. The poor guy is even taking stick for making tackles.Comparing his performance to that of Herrera's, I'm not sure what sort of out of this world performances Cleverley has to put in to get more appreciation than 'Ok'.
Clean start for Cleverley next season, if we are moving players on then it I would prefer Anderson/Fellaini to go first so I would afford Cleverley another chance..
If no midfield signings further are made then he will have a real chance to play, start fight with Fletch until Carrick comes back from injury.
If no midfield signings further are made then he will have a real chance to play, start fight with Fletch until Carrick comes back from injury.
Clev could score an overhead kick from 60 yards out and people would still miss it. This poor guy will never be appreciated by the majority of football fans because everyone now has the preconceived idea that he is amazingly shit. There was 2 pages of "
Comparing his performance to that of Herrera's, I'm not sure what sort of out of this world performances Cleverley has to put in to get more appreciation than 'Ok'.
The difference between the two passes is Herrera was under pressure and Cleverley had plenty of time and space and that is why more fuss has been made of it. The pass Cleverley made was relatively straight forward, the interplay with young was better to be fair but he isn't going to get loads of credit for playing a could of decent passes in 45 minutes. He isn't shit but he isn't good either and he pretty much sums up how average our midfield has become.
Everyone is looking for every mistake he makes so they can comment on it. The moment he makes a mistake you end up with a couple of pages of comments.Clev could score an overhead kick from 60 yards out and people would still miss it. This poor guy will never be appreciated by the majority of football fans because everyone now has the preconceived idea that he is amazingly shit. There was 2 pages of "
Comparing his performance to that of Herrera's, I'm not sure what sort of out of this world performances Cleverley has to put in to get more appreciation than 'Ok'.
I'm not his biggest fan and think some of the abject performances he has served up over the past few seasons, have been unacceptable.
Lack of competition over recent years have appeared to stagnate his career somewhat. He was getting far too many games, due to a-lack of options in that position, despite putting in very mediocre shifts. It was honestly like he thought he had 'made it' here when, in reality, he should have kept on improving and giving absolutely 100% in every game.
Nevertheless, he's not a woeful player and could be a decent squad player if he can find some semblance of form and grow a pair of balls. I certainly wouldn't sell him for £8m to Everton. Would much rather keep him and see what LvG can do with him, than take such a pitiful fee.
Lack of competition over recent years have appeared to stagnate his career somewhat. He was getting far too many games, due to a-lack of options in that position, despite putting in very mediocre shifts. It was honestly like he thought he had 'made it' here when, in reality, he should have kept on improving and giving absolutely 100% in every game.
Nevertheless, he's not a woeful player and could be a decent squad player if he can find some semblance of form and grow a pair of balls. I certainly wouldn't sell him for £8m to Everton. Would much rather keep him and see what LvG can do with him, than take such a pitiful fee.
That's another argument that pisses me off. Last night he played with balls, playing forward passes, tackling and getting more involved. The lad gets very little praise, his average rating last night is 5.6, which frankly is absurd. Played a crucial part in 2 goals, tackled way and kept our midfield ticking over. We won the 2nd half 3-0, a half that he played the full 45mins. Just seems like people will shoot him down for being on the pitch let alone making a mistake.
The non-stop Cleverley bashing is really very strange but I guess there's always got to be at least one.
What do you make of him, out of interest?
In my eyes: At best a decent squad player to have against poor and average opposition, who lacks the ability or mentality to be a first teamer in United's midfield.
There's such a massive confirmation bias about him now with some people it's simply not worth arguing.
What do you mean by ability, its a pretty general term.
He's just not a fantastic footballer and he doesn't make up for it with great heart or wonderful physique.
He's an okay footballer, nothing more. You'd never see him start consistently for our title rivals. Keep him as a squad player and to fill home grown quota.
Meh. Yeah...meh.
This ladies underwear Ad at the bottom of the page on the other hand..........meh...
This ladies underwear Ad at the bottom of the page on the other hand..........meh...
Don't think anyone expects that though? Do people really expect us to become Real Madrid and have two superstars in every position? We need players like Clev who are good squad players who can fill in when injuries/suspensions can occur and who are happy to fulfil that role in the squad. I still think Clev has all of the tools to be a very good player, the genuine issue with Clev is that he's good at everything but a master of none. But I still think there's unlocked potential with Cleverley, just needs the right manager to bring the best out of him (which tbf I think LvG can do). He's certainly improved already since the start of the tournament imo, expressing himself more during a game and playing better decisive passes forwards and getting stuck in a bit more. People will cast a blind eye to the positive things though and will instead go mad at him when he makes a mistake.
The Madrid game made me laugh as an example. First 20mins in the 2nd half we played poorly (having just made several substitutions at halftime while Madrid made none), no surprise that we looked rusty give the team had been changed so much. Yet people still complained, as soon as Madrid made their changes we bossed the game again and Clev played well (which was of course on the whole ignored).
I might stop reading Match day threads this season, they just piss me off and it just gives the newbie trolls a platform to make us look like right nobs.
If we want to compete with Real Madrid then that's exactly what we need to do surely?
Why, if there are injuries/suspensions do we need players like Cleverley to fill that position when we could simply have a better player?
I will never, ever get this argument. The simple fact that you said 'Do you expect us to become Real Madrid' - a team that are many orders better than we are currently, suggests to me you don't even want us to improve and be the best team in Europe/the world, which is odd.
First of all I don't agree with the fact Cleverley has some big potential that still has to be unlocked, he is as you said average, he has always been rather average and imo he'll always stay average. I don't know what potential you see in Cleverley at all, he is clearly way past the he is still so very young we all got to give it a little bit more time phase. He has had plenty of chances and he has almost always disappointed me, even under SAF I never saw Cleverley as a Manchester United quality player and I don't think we'll ever see him like that under LVG or any manager simply because he isn't a Manchester United quality player. The only reason he is still here is because he is english and an academy product and because our midfield options over the last couple of years have been so shite that he stuck out as one of the least shitty shits, but in the end he is still shit and he doesn't belong at a club of this level.
Secondly I don't agree we should just keep players for cover who can fill in when we have injurries and suspensions, I think all players at Manchester United should be good enough to warrant a starting position. Sure one can warrant it more than the other, that is the basis of competition and will bring in the best of these players, but if push came to shove and the second choice needs to fill in for a big game he still needs to be good enough to do a good job and we shouldn't all be shitting our pants at the idea of this guy playing in a big game, even more if things would go really bad and the first choice got injurred for months or even an entire season you shouldn't need to worry about the fact the player filling in will play most of the games. Now I'am clearly not comfortable with the idea of Cleverley starting in the midfield for us in a big game and I'am certainly not comfortable with the idea of him starting most of our games. The reason why is because he ain't good enough to be in the squad period. I'am happy with Carrick and Fletcher providing some cover up and filling in for us when we get injurries or suspensions but I'am not with Cleverley. Imo we need to sign another top CM to partner Herrera and Carrick and Fletcher need to provide cover and Cleverley can go (be sold or loaned I don't even care).
I thought he is okay on those technical areas, just quite a bit of headless chicken sometimes and not performing up to the standards.
Exactly, remember back in the day when it was Fletcher? There's a subset of supporters who love to slag off on players they deem "not United quality". Right now it's Cleverley, Young and Fellaini. And while I don't think any of those 3 are elite I don't think any of them are near as bad as they are made on to be on this forum.
Young is pretty shite winger in 442 system to be fair, Fellaini is just pointless for us.
Young made the PL team of the year twice as a left winger in a 4-4-2 system. Personally I think the issue with Young is the same as with Nani and that is consistent playing time. Some players just need to play week in and week out to play at their best.
When Nani played consistently he was player of the year and as soon as he went back to being rotated he was crap. The same is true for Young. He started his United career off well, remember the 8-2 Arsenal game? Then injuries and such caused him to be rotated in and out of the lineup and the level of his performances dropped.
The same is also true for Rooney, when he misses a few games he's quite mediocre before getting in the swing of things. SAF even said as much. Unfortunately for them Nani and Young are never given a chance to get back into a grove, both are usually dropped after one so-so performance.
"Under the new manager we are being told to think of things as a team but personally it has gone well. I definitely think I can fit into the way he plays. I don’t think I have got to make much adaptation because he likes passers, movers, and people who understand the game."
"I would still have loved to have gone (to the World Cup) but I think I made it hard for myself to go to Brazil with not playing in the last three months of the season. I played in a lot of the qualifiers, but I’m not bitter about it. I’m fully hoping to get back into the squad and help us get to the next Euros."
I totally agree some of the criticism has been OTT but I can't believe how good I thinks he is.
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