Chelsea don't play 4-4-2 nor a 4-2-3-1 system with 2 natural strikers so do not need a creative center midfielder. Their creativity is taken care of by their central play maker and his two wide helpers. Liverpool employ a play maker in Coutinho, and Gerrard too can do a similar job from deep.
For us save fora 40 year old we have no one who can create from deep and its hurting us bad.
I don't buy that at all. A midfield that has one partner who consistently only passes the ball sideways and hardly contributes enough defensively (Cleverely) can never count as solid. Our wide men under perform because most of them a being thrust a responsibility that has never been theirs. Namely being the creative focal point of the team. If we insist on playing Rooney as 10 with a center forward ahead of him, it will never work with a center midfield that can't pass the ball forward or create things consistently from deep. Even if we were able to go out and bag the likes of Reus to play on our wings.
As I said with Coutinho/Oscar that's their 3rd man which would be like us including Rooney or Kagawa in their, we have that option, whether we choose to option is another matter. Gerrard can create from deep but then so can Carrick. As I said from their actual deepest players Arsenal/City aside I don't think we're that much worse off (although each team is lacking).
On the last point I think we've seen from Clev in the past say City last season where he can play a disciplined role, I think he played quite solid against Chelsea. I think if he was told to just sit then he would do that, but he seems to be given lisence to go forward which he seems to take him outwide which leaves us with 3 players in the right hand corner usually, valencia, rb and clev and then just one midifelder in the middle. Jones is another, he's got better but previously when he wasn't given a specific tactical role he seemed to end up as an attacking midfielder. I don't see any reason they can't be told to stay central. Neither of them are lazy, they just lack the intelligence to be able to be given more freedom over their movements. Some of it, is of course due to how Valencia plays as I mentioned above, but some of it just seems to be them not being able to deal with some creative license atm.
If you look at chelsea, they typically play mikel/ramires and Lampard. I'd say Carrick offers similar protection to Mikel whilst offering more going forward and then I don't see why Clev/jones should be any less solid than ramires/lampard, but as I said too often they seem to be allowed to drift. Even if you rate Ramires better defensively which would be fair enough, that can be countered by the extra work rate of the likes of Valencia/Rooney.
Lastly I sort of agree with your final point however I don't think there's any problem wanting the wide players to be creative, again using Chelsea as an example their wide players, Hazard/Willian atm are expected to be key creative forces. Our problem from an attacking point of view, aside from the wingers poor form, is that centrally we don't really have a specialist creator ie an Oscar. Carrick is a good base but isn't a true playmaker in the scholes/pirlo mould, few of the other midfielders play good forward passes, and Rooney isn't someone who really creates centrally. He's much happier knocking it wide and he rarely carries the ball through the middle, which I guess is what you're getting at.
As a result our options are limited, we work the wide option well but they usually fail to make the most of it, and centrally we lack the players who can influence there. Even for someone like Kagawa/Januzaj though, even if they might create through the middle better than Rooney would with our current players there's a lack of players who would make runs from out wide for them to really find as they themselves would be the players, with nani most equiped to make those runs and they rarely play together or close enough to be able to link in such a way.
But as I said I see no reason for us to be as open as we are, I think Clev/Jones can be told to sit more when partnering Carrick and then for now we can grind something out and I'm not sure why they're not being told to do that more often. Going forward with our current players I think we can get a better mix of creative options if we can get januzaj and kagawa playing close to each other, Nani as well for me ideally, but I accept Kagawa and Nani need to find their own forms, but given how much consistent time Valencia has had to find his then I think we can give them more time. Certainly I hope next game if Rooney is out we see Kagawa/Januzaj central and the other playing tucked in on one side.
