No one can say that Carrick is shit (we've seen some good games from him in the past) or that he is finished (he is 29 yrs old). That are naive statements to their best. On the other hand one has to study why Carrick's form had dived down expecially since its not something that had happened only for a brief period of time.
Carrick was instrumental in our 3rd CL win. On the other hand, while I doubt that his talent had gone shite, one can easily deduce that our midfield is not exactly what it was. We have lost the best player in the world on the right flank while Scholes and Giggs are still classy but they cannot play all the games and perform (Workrate wise) in the same way they did in the past. Lets face it, none of our current midfielders would ever dream of winning a first team place in the 3rd CL team or the treble winner team.
I am not a football expert but there are players who are good enough to do well with a big club but for one reason or another they are not good enough to lead a department (defense, midfield, forwardline) out of misery singlehandidly (like Keane, Gerrard, Scholes, Gazza etc) and Carrick seems one of them. Such theory would also explain why players like Park and even Fletch are not delivering the goods as they should do.
I won't go into the sell/keep Carrick arguments since there are valid arguments in both camps. For example its true that at age 29 its the last time you can do some decent money out of the player but its also true that you would hardly be able to recoup much out of a player who had been out of form for nearly a season.
To conclude I believe that the problem may not be Fletch, Carrick, Park on any other player which plays in our midfield. The real problem may be that our midfield literally starves of the real quality needed to send shivers in our opponents spine and push them in their own box. Our midfield can hardly dominate midfields like Sunderlands where there were numerous instances were we resorted to long ball.
