That's pretty much right. If it was just a case of getting rid of Anderson and bringing in someone else there'd be no real argument. Our problem is that we need replacements for Scholes, Fletcher and Giggs as well. Could someone like Powell be ready to make the step up? I haven't seen enough of him to know.
Anderson
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That's pretty much right. If it was just a case of getting rid of Anderson and bringing in someone else there'd be no real argument. Our problem is that we need replacements for Scholes, Fletcher and Giggs as well. Could someone like Powell be ready to make the step up? I haven't seen enough of him to know.
Scholes and Fletcher are pretty much non-existent in our midfield this season. And seems like we're doing fine. Giggs is in and out a lot, and will still be here next year. So, if we let go Anderson and get only one midfielder who is able to play 40+ game a season IS a massive improvement. Surely Anderson is on the 50k+ per week region, that can be used to get better player.
We're doing fine. But one day Carrick will get injured. He's bound to. And when it happens its going to be a big problem unless we sign someone.
^ we've been saying that for years. And Anderson isn't the answer for that also. So he's just an expensive luxury cover for Cleverley, who can't even available most of the time.
Is "doing fine" enough? We should at least be aiming to have the best, for that we need a big boost in quality. The fact that we don't have someone who can perform Carrick's role is a secondary problem.
Preaching to the converted my friends. Show me the document calling for £50m to be spent on our midfield, Ill sign it, you wont have to spend time trying to talk me round. Ill be here when the window opens complaining about it not happening, dont worry about that.
I struggle with this becuase I like Cleverley a lot. There are plenty of players out there who are better than Cleverley currently is and that would improve our starting 11 right away (Modric, Moutinho, Cabaye, etc.) but Cleverley has the potential to reach those sort of levels in my opinion he just needs to add consistency. Will bringing in someone else like that hinder him or will he still play plenty of games?
Back up/future replacement for Carrick is a must though, currently we have to play Jones there if Carrick is out and Jones himself has quite a few injuries. Either way, Anderson should be around for at least one more season.
Fair enoughDon't think it would hinder cleverly much at all, surely playing alongside another top player will improve Cleverly? Some people were saying something similar about Welbeck when we were about to sign RVP, yet that has turned out pretty well. If Cleverly is good enough he'll play.
I would. It depends on the position. No need to spend 50 million on forwards, GK, defense. I'd say even wingers unless Nani leaves. Only 50m on CMs please!
Agreed with all that. I assumed because we are on Anderson's thread, (most of) those money would go for CM.
The funny thing here is the confidence this poster has.
Double check his facts? Nah, jump straight in with a big statement. How can it be possibly be wrong? He believes it to be true, therefore it must be, right!?
His time is up, we should cut our loss on him and get some decent reinforcements. Not buying Dembele for £15m was a big mistake. He is what Anderson wants to be.
Right my post was based on his wiki stats of 25 appearances in over a year, and 1 goal which is hardly key.
Is that wrong? If so hands held up but my point is If he was still here he would not be in the team regularly as he is not good ebough,therefore decided to leave.
Anderson will probably have to follow suit.
Is that wrong? If so hands held up but my point is If he was still here he would not be in the team regularly as he is not good ebough,therefore decided to leave.
Anderson will probably have to follow suit.
People claiming we don't need to invest in CM's pls look at the following;
Anderson - although good in spurts he's had lots of chances and has solidified the CM role for himself. Has had stamina issues and injury record is poor for a top professional. Bit part player at best.
Cleverley - not trusted by SAF. Others have been preferred to him in big games eg. Jones v's RM in the first leg. Started well in his first team career but has not progressed as well as expected. Good short passing game, does move the ball fast but appears to struggles with the defensive side and can fade badly in the second half.
Jones - converted CB.
Giggs - the man's a freak and an absolute legend but he's 39 and can't play CM consistently.
Carrick - excellent PL player, our best central midfielder by a country mile. He's 32 and despite his excellence in the PL he appears short of being world-class (see CL finals).
Scholes - a true legend but a 38 year old legend. Been injured for 3 months and I would be surprised to see him playing much of a role in the run-in.
If Liverpool had a central midfield like this we would be laughing at them. Also, I do subscribe to the belief that the reason we struggle when we go down to 10 men is that we haven't got someone who can hold onto the ball in difficult circumstance. Many teams now realize that to beat Utd you just have to close them down quickly and they will give the ball away.
Regardless of how you look at this we have the weakest central midfield of any of the top teams ie. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Man City - surely this needs to be addressed once and for all.
Anderson - although good in spurts he's had lots of chances and has solidified the CM role for himself. Has had stamina issues and injury record is poor for a top professional. Bit part player at best.
Cleverley - not trusted by SAF. Others have been preferred to him in big games eg. Jones v's RM in the first leg. Started well in his first team career but has not progressed as well as expected. Good short passing game, does move the ball fast but appears to struggles with the defensive side and can fade badly in the second half.
Jones - converted CB.
Giggs - the man's a freak and an absolute legend but he's 39 and can't play CM consistently.
Carrick - excellent PL player, our best central midfielder by a country mile. He's 32 and despite his excellence in the PL he appears short of being world-class (see CL finals).
Scholes - a true legend but a 38 year old legend. Been injured for 3 months and I would be surprised to see him playing much of a role in the run-in.
If Liverpool had a central midfield like this we would be laughing at them. Also, I do subscribe to the belief that the reason we struggle when we go down to 10 men is that we haven't got someone who can hold onto the ball in difficult circumstance. Many teams now realize that to beat Utd you just have to close them down quickly and they will give the ball away.
Regardless of how you look at this we have the weakest central midfield of any of the top teams ie. Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Man City - surely this needs to be addressed once and for all.
He's been on the bench three times since they bought him. When Gibson's fit, he plays, and he's very well-regarded at Everton. He's proven himself a very good Premier League midfielder, which he always obviously was to be fair, despite the absurd abuse he got from our fans particularly on here.
When you see the way people talk about Gibson, Anderson, Jones and now Cleverley you have to wonder about the ridiculously high standards this place has for midfielders. None has yet shown they're good enough to be a nailed-on starter for the club (and Gibson will now never get the chance, of course), but the way people go on you'd think they were all Glen Whelan.
umm we are man utd, our standards at a minimum should be those of peer institutions such as barca, madrid, and bayern.
With the benefit of hindsight, I would have kept Gibson and sold Ando. Ando is clearly the more "gifted" footballer, but his productivity if fairly minimal. You can produce a very nice 90 second youtube video of Ando, but would you really put your trust in him against a top half prem club? I don't think so. Gibbo has fewer tools in his locker, but he knows his limitations and just gets the job done, quietly cleaning up little messes and spraying the ball to players who've got a bit flair about them. Every team could use a player like Gibbo; not every team could use a player who's constantly injured and constantly looks like he's running out of gas after 20 minutes on the pitch.
Aye, and people would do well to remember that each of those clubs has only a few world class players too.
And they all possess at least one (in Barca's case, 4) world class midfielders.
Based on this season at least, so do we.
edit: Going by your definition of world class anyway, as this season Carrick has been at least on a par with Busquets, Alonso and Schweinsteiger. Xavi's different class, of course, but t'was ever thus.
edit: Going by your definition of world class anyway, as this season Carrick has been at least on a par with Busquets, Alonso and Schweinsteiger. Xavi's different class, of course, but t'was ever thus.
He has not!
Carrick is playing out of his skin at the moment but overall I think he's just a level below the three of those. The fact that he is (by an absolute mile) our best midfielder says it all really.
You've then got the likes of Martinez, Khedeira, Modric (well, not this season) etc who are all a level above our other options.
Really?? Khedira did bugger all against our midfield and generally looked nothing special.. to the point that we were very content to let him have the ball and we concentrated solely on Alonso. Modric was on the bench and his impact was skewed by the fact that we were down to 10 men. Madrid do not have a significantly stronger central midfield than us.... I'd give you Barca, Juve or Bayern, but not Real Madrid.
Khedeira is a better player than anyone in our midfield, bar Carrick.
Actually, Giggs too, to be fair, but he can't play much nowadays.
Not a fan of Khedeira at all to be fair.
Seems not many on here are.
Still, first choice for Real and the German national side, he must be doing something right.
Still, first choice for Real and the German national side, he must be doing something right.
Can't say I like him much but Khedira is a good player. He'd be pretty handy in our squad to say the least.
Right, I'm not basing this on this seasons form but on how I generally rate the various players having seen them over a few seasons:
- Alonso is better than Carrick
- Khedeira is better than Cleverly (though Cleverly has more potential to improve)
- Ozil is better than Kagawa (though to be fair I haven't seen much of Kagawa before this season. Having said that, do we really think he's better than Ozil?)
- Modric is far, far, far better than Anderson
So it looks to me like Madrid have comfortably the better midfield.
Madrid do not utilize Khedira's abilities to the fullest. For them he is more of a destroyer. For Germany he plays more like Carrick and is allowed to use the ball far more.
Actually, Khedira would suit us just fine. Either as Carrick's midfield partner, or as his replacement. He is a box-to-box midfielder, and would combine well with Cleverley/Carrick.
Actually Khedira has made more advance runs this seasons for Real than previous.
I don't agree that he plays much different for Germany either, the ball user is Schweinsteiger.
Don't think he's right for United but anyone who says Khedira is an average player is blind.
Germany encourage Schweinstieger and any partner he has to really use the ball. It's one of the key reasons their possession game is very good and ti evident in Khedira's play for them.
For Madrid he is given more Gattuso like duties. He does the running and the physical work for Xabi Alonso, occasionally helping out with the passing.
I personally don't think many teams would be able to live with a Khedira-Carrick partnership. Especially if both are encouraged to really use the ball. It's the same reason why I wanted us to get Martinez if Bayern didn't. Such a player would bring the best out of Carrick, while giving us a quality and steel in the middle of the pack that few will match.
I always get the impression that this guy has weight problems. Does that contribute to all the injuries he's been having or has his fitness just been unreliable?
Spot on.
I've never really seen it with Khedira, he's obviously got the defensive side down and would be a great option as backup for Carrick but his passing has never impressed me that much. The second leg of the Madrid game Khedira had all the space in the world but just couldn't do anything productive offensively which is why we contained them so well. As soon as they brought on Modric it was a different game.
Khedira may be better than Cleverley but even then I think for a majority of games Cleverley would be the preferred partner.
As far as Anderson goes I think at this point the best we can hope for is him being a good squad player.
Khedira may be better than Cleverley but even then I think for a majority of games Cleverley would be the preferred partner.
As far as Anderson goes I think at this point the best we can hope for is him being a good squad player.
It was different because we had 10 men.
soon been with us for six years, he's averaging 27 appearances a season with a total of nine goals.
we are not the club for him, time to move him on.
we are not the club for him, time to move him on.
Bringing on Modric for Khedira when we had 11 men would've made a huge difference as well, Khedira had all the space in the world but couldn't do anything with it. Modric would've been able to use that space much better.
One of the reasons Modric turned the game is because no one was marking him. He played of the edge of the are with no marking at all. Mostly because we had 10 men. For his goal, received unmarked got rid of Carrick who came rushing because we were short, after sliding the ball had tons of space, agains because we were outnumbered.
Don't get me wrong, I think he's brilliant and we should get him, but we were so good against Real before the red, I really don't think he would have the same effect on the game.
And still think we should go for him, way underused at Madrid and Song who's not very happy on the bench for Barça. That would make us a top midfield again.
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