if thats the case, then people should stop banging on about Cleverley being the fix too because him and Carrick have never worked together very well either
Fergie's obsession with picking old players in midfield
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
if thats the case, then people should stop banging on about Cleverley being the fix too because him and Carrick have never worked together very well either
Didn't we win all of our games by about 4 goals and turn into a ridiculously entertaining team when we last tried it?
That's a very strange way for something to clearly not work.
Probably.
Ideally for me Cleverley should've started midweek ahead of Scholes and then Scholes should've started yesterday, if we're going by current options.
That or abandon this whole midfield malarkey altogether and throw every talented attacker we have on the pitch, for the laugh.
Cleverley will have more opportunities to forge a successful partnership with Carrick but as yet it hasn't happened. He seems like the kind of player who will work hard to improve where he needs to improve though.
Anderson could too, but I'm assuming he wasn't physically ready yesterday?
I have no qualms with playing Scholes either from the bench or vs. weak opposition, because he is still ridiculously good when given space. His positioning is top notch too, something that Cleverley and Anderson still need to improve.
Giggs to be honest I thought should have retired last season, and I would use him in a similar way to Scholes except in a more attacking position and not in a midfield 2.
I think SAF just said that to Berbatov to try and keep him happy when he was still here. I think he just had enough and decided to bring through Welbeck and Hernandez. Plus of course, different requirements for a forward and for a midfielder, and only space in the team for so many slower players. Anyway, Scholes can still push the tempo with his long passing, and Giggs is probably quicker than Berbatov still and likes his dangerous through balls.
Anderson could too, but I'm assuming he wasn't physically ready yesterday?
I have no qualms with playing Scholes either from the bench or vs. weak opposition, because he is still ridiculously good when given space. His positioning is top notch too, something that Cleverley and Anderson still need to improve.
Giggs to be honest I thought should have retired last season, and I would use him in a similar way to Scholes except in a more attacking position and not in a midfield 2.
I think SAF just said that to Berbatov to try and keep him happy when he was still here. I think he just had enough and decided to bring through Welbeck and Hernandez. Plus of course, different requirements for a forward and for a midfielder, and only space in the team for so many slower players. Anyway, Scholes can still push the tempo with his long passing, and Giggs is probably quicker than Berbatov still and likes his dangerous through balls.
Look, I'm not denying we were shit yesterday. You're asking why he made the decisions he did. I'm simply saying that I believe the decisions were based on believing those players could handle the atmosphere better and take some of the sting out of the game. Anderson and Cleverley are both very talented players but both are equally capable of going missing. They consistently leave us wide open in midfield. Cleverley may improve in that respect since he's lacking in experience, though I think Anderson's shown no progress in that regard.
And I wouldn't agree that Giggs offers the same or less defensively. He had a bad game, but judging what he can offer by that standard is always going to unfair. So the question is whether it was the system that caused them to play poorly or was it just a bad performanc. IMO, had those players played well I don't think the system would have stopped us getting a result.
This is what I don't get, if there is no top, top Midfielder available we could at least do with a defensively inclined midfielder to do a multitude of things. Firstly to take the reliance off of Carrick, secondly to grow into Carrick's role and eventually succeed him and thirdly a 4-2-3-1 with two defensively inclined Midfielders isn't the worst thing in the World (Mourihno's Inter for example).
I can't think of that many matches they have played together in a midfield 2, I'd imagine you would be able to count them on 1 hand
Scholes and Giggs compliment Carrick better than Cleverley and Anderson.
Even if Cleverley and Anderson were 100% fit Scholes and Giggs would still compliment Carrick better than Cleverley and Anderson. The reason is Carrick is less mobile and holds his position more which means unless his midfield partner will sit in beside him a massive gap will open in midfield.
If you're going to play a pressing game you have to play it as a team and if you're going to counter attack you have to counter attack as a team. You cant have one midfielder racing off to press and the other sitting off waiting to counter with a quick accurate pass forward to the flanks. It doesn't work.
Teams are made of combinations. This is why once upon a time Carrick and Scholes found themselves out of the side in favour of Hargreaves and Anderson and vice versa. It is also why for all their merits as players Fletcher and Carrick has never quite clicked. You cannot play two players who don't compliment each other.
I dont like how we play when we set up as we did yesterday. The same thing happened at White Hart Lane last season. We gave up huge amounts of ground and let the front 4 stay high up and banked on ourselves to capitalise if we sprung the trap early which we did with Ashley Young and Nani that day. Yesterday however the wingers were equally as rubbish as everyone else and Kagawa looked out of place playing the counter attacking game looking for short passes that simply weren't there.
But if you're going to play the broken team strategy and hope to counter then you have to say apart from Kagawa Fergie picked the right team. Kagawa is better suited to games we want to play quick intricate stuff and press from the front for the counter Hernandez is a lot better as he'll break the offside trap more often.
Even if Cleverley and Anderson were 100% fit Scholes and Giggs would still compliment Carrick better than Cleverley and Anderson. The reason is Carrick is less mobile and holds his position more which means unless his midfield partner will sit in beside him a massive gap will open in midfield.
If you're going to play a pressing game you have to play it as a team and if you're going to counter attack you have to counter attack as a team. You cant have one midfielder racing off to press and the other sitting off waiting to counter with a quick accurate pass forward to the flanks. It doesn't work.
Teams are made of combinations. This is why once upon a time Carrick and Scholes found themselves out of the side in favour of Hargreaves and Anderson and vice versa. It is also why for all their merits as players Fletcher and Carrick has never quite clicked. You cannot play two players who don't compliment each other.
I dont like how we play when we set up as we did yesterday. The same thing happened at White Hart Lane last season. We gave up huge amounts of ground and let the front 4 stay high up and banked on ourselves to capitalise if we sprung the trap early which we did with Ashley Young and Nani that day. Yesterday however the wingers were equally as rubbish as everyone else and Kagawa looked out of place playing the counter attacking game looking for short passes that simply weren't there.
But if you're going to play the broken team strategy and hope to counter then you have to say apart from Kagawa Fergie picked the right team. Kagawa is better suited to games we want to play quick intricate stuff and press from the front for the counter Hernandez is a lot better as he'll break the offside trap more often.
Also, hasn't Giggs started 1 game in CM this season, whereas Cleverley has started about 4?
Words like reliant and obsession are completely misplaced, especially in reference to Giggs.
Scholes we are still somewhat reliant on but then he still has a lot to offer, and has been fecking tremendous this past 9 months or so.
Words like reliant and obsession are completely misplaced, especially in reference to Giggs.
Scholes we are still somewhat reliant on but then he still has a lot to offer, and has been fecking tremendous this past 9 months or so.
I don't understand why people don't remember/comprehend this. Sure they could develop a partnership with Carrick over time, but away at Anfield is not the time to give it a go.
Right, to the people who are convinced we're doing the right thing then:
Do you think yesterday's performance, or our performances so far this season, are so much more impressive than our start to last season, that they justify us continuing to try and play this way and completely ignore the way we played at the start of last season?
If so, why? Are you mental? Will you still think Scholes is our best midfielder when he's 48?
Do you think yesterday's performance, or our performances so far this season, are so much more impressive than our start to last season, that they justify us continuing to try and play this way and completely ignore the way we played at the start of last season?
If so, why? Are you mental? Will you still think Scholes is our best midfielder when he's 48?
Depends if he is.
He isn't now. He's become a comfort blanket player.
This is it. Given what we have at the moment, playing one of Scholes/Giggs regularly (but not both at the same time!) makes sense. But what is bewildering is SAF's annual refusal to bring in an established player to shore up the midfield.
As you say, the window is closed at the moment, so there's little point fretting about it now. But hopefully we can address it as soon as possible.
I feel our start to last season has been grossly overrated over time. We scrapped a win away to West Brom, beat very poor and under prepared Spurs and Arsenal teams and got very lucky against Norwich at home, who kept missing sitters.
We beat Bolton 5-0 thanks to a very in form Rooney (Cleverley went off after 10 minutes, replaced by Carrick) and beat a poor Chelsea 4-0 with them missing loads of chances as well (Fletcher in midfield for that game).
So this Cleverley-Anderson make us play great football thing is a bit of a myth imo.
Was you displeased with our performances at the start of last season, when compared to our performances at the start of this?
We didn't have anyone then who we don't have now...apart from Darron Gibson. We also didn't have Scholes at the time.
Isn't Anderson recovering from injury whilst Cleverley has played a fair bit this season and has been below par?
They will of course get plenty of opportunities this season. Why have you turned into such a drama queen?
I'm of the opinion that our start to last season was a one-off, as we have tried the same combinations since then and it hasn't worked. At this stage I don't care who we play in midfield, nothing seems to work.
The fact that Fergie genuinely seems to believe that the experience of Scholes and Giggs got us through the game yesterday is very worrying. He'll continue relying on them in all probability.
At least one of Anderson or Cleverley played in all of those games, while Scholes and Giggs appeared in none of them. The only poor performance in there was against Norwich. Chelsea were excellent against us in that game too, btw. I haven't seen them play as well as that since.
Do you think our start to this season has been better, or worse? I think it's been much, much worse, and I also much prefered the brand of football we played at the start of last season. It certainly wasn't a "myth"
Just to clarify, we started last season with Anderson and Cleverley in midfield (after beating City 3-2 in the CS).
2-1 v WBA
3-0 v Spurs
8-2 v Arsenal
5-0 v Bolton
Against City they were great when we changed things. Against WBA we were alright without being exceptional. We started well and then faltered when DDG let in that equaliser from Long and only won the game after a bit of brilliance from Ashley Young. Then against Spurs, Cleverley particularly was pretty poor until we broke the deadlock on 61 minutes. Let's not forget that Spurs were in disarray due to Levy's usual transfer window dicking around and played an out-of-position Krancjar and a very inexperienced Livermore in there. The game against Arsenal was fantastic, particularly in an attacking sense but again, they were in utter disarray and we still gave up loads of chances (though admittedly that will happen when you're attacking like a team of lunatics). Then v Bolton Cleverley got injured early, Carrick came on and that was the end of it.
I'm not saying there were loads of positives to come from that run, but it wasn't the fantasy football people like to suggest. It was the beginnings of a good partnership which benefited from a nice run of fixtures.
I disagree.
Of all the matches we've played this season the first hour of the home game against Fulham was certainly the best due in large part to Cleverley and Anderson. Them playing the way they do, playing as high up the pitch as they do creates the opportunities for triangles with Kagawa when he's in the hole and to bring in the wide players and overload the flanks with the full backs. When its working it looks beautiful.
Playing that way also has drawbacks however and can be described as gung ho. The only teams to successfully play that high up the pitch are Barcelona and to some extent Madrid. That's because Barcelona win the ball back much faster than we do because of the doggedness of their pressing and they also have the advantage of having better technical players than we do, so they keep the ball better under pressure.
It therefore makes sense for us to switch our approach against different opposition in a way that Barca and Madrid probably wouldn't. However, when going all out clicks it looks amazing. I dislike how we set up yesterday but I can see the tactical logic in setting up as we did. It was simply that all 4 midfield players were off colour in the first half and none of the 4 in the second half played above 6/7 out of 10 level.
When have we tried the same combinations?
I can think of only Fulham at home...and this was the only performance so far this season I didn't think was shite.
But you are assuming that this one variable - did Cleverley and / or Anderson play or Scholes and / or Giggs - is the sole difference between our play then and our play now. But in reality there are a lot of factors at play.
BTW, I want to see Cleverley and Anderson playing together more. And I think we will, assuming both of them stay fit. Meaning we probably wont.
Cleverley and Anderson doesn't work?
I don't remember losing a game with them in there, plus, we were actually superbly entertaining.
Well we'll only find out when Anderson and Cleverley
a.) Stop getting injured every 5 minutes, and
b.) Hit some good form
Until then it's all speculative bullshit.
People give far too much attention into soundbites that managers and players give to the press.
Also it's weird how a bad game for Giggs and now Scholes is being dragged into it. I'm pretty sure Scholes was voted 2nd or 3rd by most posters in the MOTM thread this weekend, and has been applauded for some fantastic performances since his return.
Also worth noting that Ferdinand was almost unanimously voted as the best United player too. Yet everyone assumes that SAF is talking about Giggs and Scholes. People see what they want to see. I'd say that Ferdinand's experience was fecking vital yesterday, and Scholes came on and transformed our play.
Europa League? I don't think we have actually used the Ando/Cleverley combo since bar the Fulham game this season.
Jesus, it took 67 posts for someone (me) to mention Rio Ferdinand, who at 34 years old was our best player yesterday. Experience, bitches.
edit: Admittedly, the thread title was about midfield (
for me). But it was based largely on SAFs comments about experience, and other threads have been filled with references to SAFs comments and Scholes and Giggs, but not Rio.
edit: Admittedly, the thread title was about midfield (
for me). But it was based largely on SAFs comments about experience, and other threads have been filled with references to SAFs comments and Scholes and Giggs, but not Rio.Anderson played a couple more games with Fletcher after that I think, and we still looked pretty good...and that was with Carrick doing his usual not get himself fit until October trick, so not being a real option. Carrick can very easily play in a similar kind of system. He did so towards Christmas when we had a short run of playing very well using Jones in the Anderson/Cleverley role.
Scholes can't play this kind of football anymore. Giggs doesn't have the legs to unless we change the position he's used in. Since we've brought Scholes back, we seem to have just completely given up on playing this way, and every week Scholes gets a week older.
It looked to me like the beginings of a good partnership, or more specifically a new and much more effective way of playing, which has since been shleved in order for us to literally sit still and hope Paul Scholes lasts forever...even though he actually lasts until about 2011 (2009). Then when we can't play him, due to him being too old, for some reason we pick the one person who's even older.
"I think Scholes, Carrick and Giggs' experience got us through."
Yes, we do assume he was talking about Scholes and Giggs. And Carrick. It's a safe assumption at this point.
Scholes did not transform our play yesterday though he has a habit of doing so. The red card transformed the game but we still could not create chances, we still did not control the game, we were still sloppy in possession - it got somewhat better but mostly due to the numerical advantage.
Yeah, we knew that Cleverley and Anderson are prone to getting injured every 5 minutes. Throughout the summer many people said that it's bullshit to pin all our hopes in midfield on extremely old veterans and injury prone youngsters. And when it comes to crunch games, Fergie still clearly trusts the oldies far more which is what noodles seems to resent. And with good reason, as we seem to struggle more often than not in these games.
And I agree with him in that Scholes is a comfort blanket. He's the only one in the entire squad who is capable of dictating the rhytm and pace of the game which means that 1) we're disjointed without him, 2) our players defer to him to the extent that we become predictable when he's on the pitch. It's not a good situation.
It was definitely picking older players in midfield that cost us this game. If we'd played younger players we might have won.
Stupid bloody Frogie.
Stupid bloody Frogie.
unless im blind, Nani and Valencia were on the pitch too. Admittedly Nani went invisible so Scholes was brought on
I'm with Noodles on anything midfield related.. he's moaning for the right reasons. Scholes was able to dominate that match 2nd half because Liverpool's pressing game was non existent after they went to 10 men.. had he started he would've suffered the same fate as Giggsy albeit not as bad.
I said Scholes transformed OUR PLAY, not THE GAME, dear.
I don't think SAF has a particular discrimination against young or old players. Each situation is unique. Starting Giggs in a game when Anderson is injured and Cleverley is out of form does not mean that SAF is more likely in general to opt for Giggs over a younger option in big games.
To be honest there are few players in world football that are capable of dictating the rhythm and pace of their team's game as well as Paul Scholes. Predictable it might be, stopping it is something else.
We've heard different interviews with SAF then, but ok.
I'd agree, it's obvious he knows more about the older players, and midfielders in general, than Alex Ferguson.
Cleverley could work alongside Carrick. We've not really tried those two together much.
And Carrick/Anderson has supplied some great performances for us.
Those are two options we're seeing too little of IMO. Both are better at this point, in most matches, than relying on Giggs or even Scholes.
Well done
Well he didn't start, and I don't think anyone would suggest starting him would have been a good idea.
Nor is anyone going to claim that starting Giggs worked out well, but given the alternatives were either unfit or out of form, then it's hardly worthy of such venomous and unconstructive criticism.
Well done what? You're like a broken record of late, a miserable one at that.