Darron Gibson - is he good enough for Everton?

samabachan

In terms of playing style he reminds me of Michael Ballack.

Pogue Mahone

Every half-decent young central midfielder on our books gets hailed as similar to one of those two at some point. Or Vieira, if they're black. The point still stands that Gibson's progress has not been surpassed by any of his less naturally talented peers.

Nate Dogg

Gibson is not good enough to get into the Pakistani football team nevermind United!!!

At best he is a first division version of Carrick who offers nothing other than the occasional 20 yard shot, it baffles that some of you think he is good or improving, ffs he is 20 plus and if he cant cut it against Crawley he wont be playing for us next season.

Ekeke

Gibson was good when involved, in fact one or two moments where he did brilliantly, but did his trick of dissappearing for a length of time. And we cant afford that

Devils Advocate

His positional play is awful. You notice it most when at the game rather than watching on tv - he follows the ball pretty much always yet never really gets to it. Today, he'd go for balls O'Shea was dealing with and narrowed our options continuously. He doesn't really do anything, harsh as that sounds.

peterstorey

Yeah? I used to play like Liam Brady, but sadly I wasn't anywhere near as good.

Red Dreams

he did what he was supposed to do.

O' Shea and him were the holding midfield players and they did their jobs.

Rooney was the key for us. Smalling, Vdic and VDS kept us in it at the back.

good day at the office.

Starkie_1

The views of someone who has obviously never ever played football at any level and fails to recognise any sort of footballing ability.

First Division? Gibson, as inconsistent and frustrating as he is, would walk into any team from 7-20 in the top flight.

Care_de_Bobo

He was the only player who really showed anything against Crawley apart from Wes and Smalling so that is a strange example.

He just played his part in getting us to the semis of the FA Cup yet some people are still complaining. Can't people just enjoy a good victory for once especially after the last couple of weeks. If he's good enough to play in a winning side against the second best team in the country then he clearly is good enough for United even if it is only as a squad player.

The only thing stopping him from becoming a top midfielder is a mental thing, he needs to get on the ball more and ask for it. That will come with more game time though and feeling more confident.

championo

Sure you don't mean John Ballack?

Name Changed

Bearded but no genius

He is. Fletcher is injured right now.

Name Changed

I suppose. Good point.

Cold_Boy

Wtf?


Seriously?

MadDogg

Nobody expected him to help dominate possession. Or even come close to it.

But I do expect him to make himself available for the pass more often than he does. Obviously it was a deliberate tactic to go long and/or wide quite often to bypass their midfield, but there were numerous times where we were playing it around obviously looking to pass it through the midfield and Gibson was either standing still or just jogging around behind an Arsenal player. It's something Anderson does as well, but Gibson is even worse.

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

Not this time. Some of you are desperately looking for a reason to diss his performance of yesterday. Going from the above excuses to even claimimg it is because of Rooney and then Rafael that we were holding off Arsenal so well rather than any work he and O'shea did.

Yesterday, especially in second half he and O'shea repeatedly launched our counter attacks. Second, yesterday we had little intention of passing through midfield often. That was never the tactic of the day. At any point.

The combined job of O'shea and Gibson was to impersonate Makalele in an ultra defensive fashion as much as possible then either give a short ball to Rooney or the flanker to carry it forward. Or if possible hit a long ball into space for the pace of Hernandez and the twins to do damage.

The only thing that mostly didn't come off was the long ball in first half, especially from Gibson, Vidic and Smalling. This ''he didnt make himself available'' argument for last night's game is total bullshit. You do that when your aim is to play through midfield and keep possession. That was so clearly not part of our game plan at any point in that game until Scholes and Giggs were both on pitch. Gibson and O'shea were given the job of frustrating Arsenal and making their passing pointless once they got in our final third. Win possession back and either short or long pass it to an outlet. Little else. To deny that they did that well is really clutching at straws.

It's an utter fallacy to attempt to claim we tried to play more progressively in midfield a number of times and Gibson some how held us back.

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

Man Utd 2-0 Arsenal: United counter excellently | Zonal Marking

MadDogg

Hmm, I notice you said it was in the second half that they launched quite a few counter attacks. And thinking back it was in the first half I did repeatedly notice them not making themselves available when we were looking to go through them. So they may well have improved in the second half.

Obviously our tactic was to go long or wide. But that doesn't mean the midfielders don't have to be making themselves available to bring options. Like I said, there were numerous times (mostly in the first half) where we were playing it around the backline and Smalling or Wes were obviously looking to pass it into the midfield and there was no-one there to pass to. And it wasn't like O'Shea and Gibson were trying to get into space and just being shut down by the superior numbers (which would've been understandable), they simply weren't making any kind of runs. Which even if they hadn't got the ball, would've dragged the Arsenal midfield around and possibly opened up chances for someone else. Instead, there were times that Smalling or Wes had to hoof it up not because of tactics and a good run up front, but because there was no-one else to pass it to. It certainly didn't happen constantly, but to claim it didn't happen at all is a bit silly.

I don't really expect any different from O'Shea, but I expect more from Gibson. He has the ability to be a good solid midfielder from us and I want him to make it, but he simply has to improve his work-rate and positioning. Do that and I personally will be very happy with him as a squad player and possibly even more.

All 3 United

He isn't as bad as some make out on here. Given our current central midfield and gibsons age he could very well end up making it.

golden_blunder

good enough to beat your shower though

Boss

Gibson played well yesterday, I looking at how shite Arsenal were and wondering why we give him so much stick.

He's a good lad to have around.

golden_blunder

i thought he did ok at making himself available against Arsenal, he played some good triangles, especially with Scholes when he came on. Also did ok in the build up to the first goal.

Theres some criticisms in this thread which makes me wonder where some fans think we will get these perfect football playing robots from?

golden_blunder

i dont normally result to name calling but this post warrants it

you're a knobhead

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

You make yourselves available when your aim is to keep posession and play through the midfield. That was never the aim. We changed tactics around for second half because SAF realised we were mis-queueing long balls repeatedly.

The truth is they were not looking to pass to the midfield. They were looking for long balls openings. At the beginning of the game it seemed liek they went for the long all because the lacked options to pass too. But as it wore on it become obvious that it was a deliberate tactic.

I'm claiming it didn't happen because it took a while for our actual tactics to sink into to the casual viewer. We are all used to us playing to options in midfield from the defence rather than looking to hit the long ball. But by a quarter way through first half it became obvious what the tactics were. Gibson and O'shea were there to simply to shield the defence, and pass square to a ball carrier or the center backs for them to hit the front players with a long ball into space. Occasional Gibson and O'shea too were given the mandate to do the same. It had nothing to do with Arsenal out numbering us in midfield, or our two sitting midfielder refusing to make runs to drag their midfielders out of place. We were deliberately making Arsenal come on to us, so that they could expose their defence to the pace of our forwards, when ever their fullbacks advanced.

There is no doubt in my mind it was all down to tactics. Because second half the style of play of Gibbo and John O also changed according to the tactics at hand. With them playing one-twos more and looking to be available for a pass or two much more.

That is all well and good when it comes to commenting on him in general.

But yesterday he stuck to instructions like a fly to shit. It's grossly unfair for people to blame him for doing his job. People on here wanted him to play like a Carrick does in the role when that wasnt his madate at all. Yesterday his job was to mirror O'shea in every way & he certainly did.

MadDogg

You don't think having more options would have caused Arsenal to have to stretch themselves and make our tactic of going long more effective?

Just because we're deliberately going long doesn't mean the midfielders shouldn't even bother giving our other players options. Instead, we were forced to aimlessly go long even when there were no players in a suitable position.

kuanteen

The few moments that he had the ball, I remember him faring decently. A few nice touches, some neat passes, but how many times did he actually get the ball?

While off the ball he usually points to another team mate to pass to, points to space that he wants a team mate to go defend, and keeps his distance from whoever has possession, so he wasn't effective defensively either. The opposition could easily get pass him either with passing or dribbling and our center halfs basically had no cover. So much for the holding position....

Gibson makes O'Shea look like a veritable sprinter, too.

Fergies Formula

Being one of Gibsons harshest critics i must say, yesterday he had a good game. Well done. He has a lot to work on still but this was a positive sign, heres hoping he uses this as a platform. Postioning and sharpness is something he still needs hard coaching lessons on.

kuanteen

Agree...there were moments where massive amounts of space were available in the midfield yet Vidic was forced to pass a long ball and see it go wide...all this while Gibson and O'Shea were just standing around....in one moment, Rooney ran back past Gibson to pick up the ball from our defense. Surely that is what Gibson should be doing? (Who knows what Fergie's real intentions are?) Defensively, how many times did Gibson end up being behind the offensive player?

Overall, I thought he was really poor off the ball.

samabachan

I absolutely agree that his development has stalled badly, but equally it is a fallacy to claim that he was never rated - at 16/17 he very much was.

Pogue Mahone

I don't think I claimed he was never rated, nor did I say his development has stalled badly

samabachan

I can't read, ignore me




But the bolded part is not true. He was rated higher than O'Shea and Pique and as highly as Fletcher when he was young. And Fletcher was rated very, very highly at 16.

datura

He looked better when we moved to a 3 2nd half, but in the first he was off the pace, didn't close down quick enough or show enough for the ball.

Sometimes you wonder if he really wants it enough.

Ole'sbodyguard

Spot on Chief. Our tactics were going to be vastly different than normal with such a makeshift midfield against a top two side.

RedThaiDevils#7

It's his stamina for me, Unlike Fletcher, Gibson is slow to react at times and he just looks immobile...

But just seeing him not active doesn't judge his total attributes as a MF though as you can sometimes see his potential with his ball movement and passes, I really liked the one where he used his foot to avoid Wilshere and Diaby and threaded the ball to Fabio which lead to Rafa's miss header...

He did well there.

Basically for Gibson to look good, he just needs to do better defensively, make himself look inspiring, maybe learn those late challenges from Scholes just to let the fans and opposition know that he's there.

Boss

He should start against Marseille.

Pogue Mahone

See I'd disagree with that. Pique had a phenomenal reputation on the back of his performances for Spain in youth competitions and Fletcher was so highly rated Fergie wanted to challenge the FA rules to give him first team football when he was barely 16 years old. O'Shea was incredibly highly rated in Ireland as a teen and his first few appearances for United only raised his profile higher.

Gibson was thought of as an exciting young talent but didn't attract the same hype as those three. Not from what I can remember. I'd say his profile was very similar to that of, for example, Norwood or Brady.

MadDogg

O'Shea probably, but I certainly don't remember him being rated as highly as Pique and Fletcher. Those two along with Rossi and Evans were probably the highest rated kids since the class of 92.

Decotron

Brady was rated very highly and had a host of top clubs after him.

A lad I know thats a youth team coach with St. Kevins (a liverpool fan) said when we signed him we'd just got the best player for his age in the country, never heard anything near that sort of praise for Gibson.......

Nate Dogg

Is it that time of the month again golden, you need to take a chill pill and realise that people can have opinions too!

RedDevilCanuck

He is actually pretty damn talented with the ball. He can pass and shoot and is capable of some beauty touches.

He just isn't a good enough athlete. His positioning isn't good enough to let his lack of speed/strength/workrate.

Carrick isn't the most pysical player but he makes up for it in other ways.