Michael Carrick as a first-choice player

Mr. Ant said:
Can we just clone him please? We are awful without him.

Seriously though we would need to play 4-3-3 with Herrera and Pogba doing all the running for him so he can do his thing.

That won't happen unless Jose finally drops Rooney.
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Will Pogba do the running though? He seems an anomaly to me in that he's actually quicker with the ball at this feet and incredibly sluggish when tracking back or trying to press.
 
Di Maria's angel said:
Over the last few seasons, he's barely played well.

I think he was very decent in about a dozen games in 14/15, otherwise he's been shite since we won the league.
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Yeah. Carrick's reputation has soared in his absence. He's been mostly anonymous and sometimes terrible. In his defence, he hasn't been used well at all. He needs legs around him at his age.
 
Shane88 said:
Will Pogba do the running though? He seems an anomaly to me in that he's actually quicker with the ball at this feet and incredibly sluggish when tracking back or trying to press.
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This. Pogba is awfully slow both in terms of running and anticipation when defending, but he is surprisingly fast with the ball. Carrick would be good next to Pogba simply because he plays the ball quicker. Pogba and Rooney takes forever to pass a ball.
 
Do we now just have an overly physical team and no brains in midfield? Carrick seems one answer Blind another.

Pogba - Carrick/Blind - Herrara

feck knows what to do with Schneiderlin.
 
PTSTSL said:
Do we now just have an overly physical team and no brains in midfield? Carrick seems one answer Blind another.

Pogba - Carrick/Blind - Herrara

feck knows what to do with Schneiderlin.
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He's fit for the scrap heap along with Depay, Jones, and Rooney.
 
Ho bad does it have to get before the poor guy gets a game? He got the contract extension... give him some game time for goodness sake
 
IgnorantLobster said:
Pogba -------- Herrera
Carrick
​
So obvious.
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It seems so but then the midfield against Feyenoord should've been able to make a passing resemblance of this set-up yet didn't at all.

You can pin that on Schneiderlin maybe but it does seem that even when we get a midfield line-up that everyone agrees with, it still turns out bad.

I'm still well up for trying the above. What have we got to lose? Blind in the Carrick role could work also I hope (because feck if we're going to rely on Carrick all season).
 
The sad thing is that only 50% of what we are missing his his passing. We're also desperately (especially this match) missing his positioning. He's always moving and positioning himself to receive the ball if the player who currently has it needs to pass it to. There were numerous times this match where Pogba, Fellaini, or someone else had the ball with two defenders on them and they were trying to find someone to pass it to, and absolutely nobody was moving in the centre of the field for them to give it to. And we then proceed to lose it.
 
Kag said:
Yeah. Carrick's reputation has soared in his absence. He's been mostly anonymous and sometimes terrible. In his defence, he hasn't been used well at all. He needs legs around him at his age.
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Yup. I would still like to see him start with Herrera and Pogba around him. If not him, then Blind would be my next choicd at DM.
 
Right now we might do ok if we fielded 13 players rather than the usual eleven like that we can play Carrick, Schneiderlin, Herrera & Fellaini...
 
Dobbs said:
Putting everything else aside his injury record alone means he's not a viable choice for the remainder of the season.



Agree that its just not working in midfield. The reality is we don't have a midfielder capable of doing that lone DM role. So why try and force it.

Just play Blind and Hererra as a midfield two with Pogba having a free role in front of them. If we have a game that needs some height just pull one of them out for Fellaini.
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I think Blind isn't the answer. Nor do I think Jose will play him there.
 
We need to get this guy onto the pitch ASAP.

We don't have a player who dictates the play, we look so disjointed and there is no flow to our attacks. Fellaini started the season well, but he should not be starting next to Pogba, it is not good enough.

As many have pointed out, a midfield of Carrick, Herrera and Pogba has all the attributes you would associate with a strong midfield.
 
He'll be 'the missing link' until he gets destroyed in some match, then we'll be longing for Herrera, he'll come on, get destroyed, then it will be Fellaini who'll be missing, etc. The never ending circle of midfield failure. Remember when we've had Carrick and Herrera in midfield and we lacked 'some steel'? Now we've got some 'steel', some 'drive' from Pogba so we lack the 'controller'. So we'll drop either of those two, get controller, play 2-3 good games just to miss one of the former.

Of course the solution would be playing with 3 midfielders but I'd argue we've done that against Feyenoord, who have we lacked there? I'd say we've had the drive in Pogba, people said that Herrera can control the games so he was there too and then Schneiderlin, probably as something closest to the destroyed/steel thing. We've got steamrolled.
 
Kostur said:
He'll be 'the missing link' until he gets destroyed in some match, then we'll be longing for Herrera, he'll come on, get destroyed, then it will be Fellaini who'll be missing, etc. The never ending circle of midfield failure. Remember when we've had Carrick and Herrera in midfield and we lacked 'some steel'? Now we've got some 'steel', some 'drive' from Pogba so we lack the 'controller'. So we'll drop either of those two, get controller, play 2-3 good games just to miss one of the former.

Of course the solution would be playing with 3 midfielders but I'd argue we've done that against Feyenoord, who have we lacked there? I'd say we've had the drive in Pogba, people said that Herrera can control the games so he was there too and then Schneiderlin, probably as something closest to the destroyed/steel thing. We've got steamrolled.
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Great post! People always look for the easy obvious answer. "Put players in their position" "Need some steel and physicality" "Need some guile and flair" ... Those half baked solutions are endless. There are plenty of examples of teams being successful with players out of position, with no physicality to speak of or with no typical playmakers/controllers. The idea that defence, midfield and attack as separate entities that function within themselves is baffling to say the least. It's straight out of the video game rulebook and cannot be seriously applicable in the real thing. If you play a deep defensive line with two wide men that hug the touchline and two midfielders, it really doesn't matter what you have in there, they will not be able to control a midfield against any decent side, let alone a great one. Even our best maybe ever midfield partnership Scholes/Keane could not achieve that feat against the good sides which prompted Fergie to the 3 men midfield experiment in Europe.

The whining that why can't Pogba do it or that we should buy a midfielder who can do it is really pointless. It doesn't happen, teams don't do it just like they don't rely on a Terry, Stam or Vidic type of defender to defend anymore. If you want to control a midfield, in addition obviously to the quality of players, you need movement and positioning, things you do on the training ground if that is your intention. We can argue that our defence and midfield worked actually fine under LvG. We consistently controlled games against the likes of City, Liverpool and Chelsea, teams we struggled to control midfields against before him. Mourinho works differently though, he doesn't look to control the midfield, he doesn't push his defence high up to ensure bodies in the middle. He prefers to let the opponent control and rely on his defenders to defend and his forwards to create something with the midfielders contributing a bit on both ends, not very different to Fergie really. So no, I don't expect us to control the midfield against anyone who isn't $hite regardless of personnel or attributes of that personnel.
 
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