I also agree with van Gaal in regards to his point on experience. It's not just on the pitch experience that adds to a player. It's life experience too and Fletcher as we know, has been through a bit and came out of it strong. So he obviously has something about him.
Darren Fletcher | 2013/14 Performances
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This is the guy who came through the ranks. The club has spent its time and effort in developing him. He is an inspiration to the young players. This is one of the few remaining senior players who gets what the club is all about.
Still leaving all the sentiments aside, he seems to have recovered from his illness or at least learnt to manage it. He showed in patches last season that he can still contribute. Consider, he had to fast track to the team mid season condition when he came back. That has to be difficult for anyone that is sidelined for a while.
This is his proper comeback. He has a year on his contract. Whats the problem giving him a chance to prove himself. He won't block us from signing a new CM anyway.
Still leaving all the sentiments aside, he seems to have recovered from his illness or at least learnt to manage it. He showed in patches last season that he can still contribute. Consider, he had to fast track to the team mid season condition when he came back. That has to be difficult for anyone that is sidelined for a while.
This is his proper comeback. He has a year on his contract. Whats the problem giving him a chance to prove himself. He won't block us from signing a new CM anyway.
Agreed. Theres a lot of caftards who think player stats tell all you need to know about their abilities. Having the ability to inspire and pick up those around you when things aren't going well is priceless and difficult to qualify in statistics.
People who used to question why SAF would persist with Giggs and Scholes just don't have a clue what sort of contributions these players gave to the squad. There is a huge difference between lining up beside a legend, as opposed to having them coach you.
I have no problem with Fletcher getting the final year of his contract to prove he still has what it takes to play at this level. I expect if he is not up to the standard required that LVG will drop him immediately.
That's actually one of the interesting thing about LVG. He understands the importance of leadership and youth in the dressingroom, but he has no alliegance to players that SAF brought up.
When you start lying to support your point of view...
Not experienced? He made his United debut 12 years ago and his Scotland debut 11 years ago. He's been Scotland's captain since 09. He's got more than 60 games in the CL, and he's been important in plenty of big games (he's been unlucky not to appear in a CL final though
). Not to mention how much more you grow as a human being from the shit he's been through rather than playing football.And this.
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Here's the thing though, Fletcher has got 1 year left on his contract, everyone knows he won't be offered a new deal even if he plays like Zidane next season, why?
Because it's too of a big risk to give him a new contract, he's had too much already for the little that he's given back to the club in his last contact deal, you might turn around and say I'm reading too much into the financial situation (like someone said earlier) but that's how things will be viewed, if the Glazers/directors and powers that could be could have ended his contract without paying him during his illness they would have done, they never carried on paying him because he's been at the club since he was 16, they carried on paying him because they gave him a 4 or 5 year contact and had to.
Same reason why they can't end it now (unless someone signs him) because they will have to pay out the remainder of his contract.
So i look at it this way and ask people this, take bias away, take your love for him away and look at Darren Fletcher the footballer, would you like him on the pitch vs United if he played for Liverpool, i know i would, so what does that tell you? If this is his last season at United, where is he going to go after this, Chelsea/Barcelona/City/PSG? Of course he isn't because he's not good enough, so if he's not good enough for them, how is he good enough for United?
Like Hargreaves, if/when he leaves United he will struggle to find ANY club (never mind big club) it's too of a big risk for clubs to give him any kind of contract with his illness.
Because it's too of a big risk to give him a new contract, he's had too much already for the little that he's given back to the club in his last contact deal, you might turn around and say I'm reading too much into the financial situation (like someone said earlier) but that's how things will be viewed, if the Glazers/directors and powers that could be could have ended his contract without paying him during his illness they would have done, they never carried on paying him because he's been at the club since he was 16, they carried on paying him because they gave him a 4 or 5 year contact and had to.
Same reason why they can't end it now (unless someone signs him) because they will have to pay out the remainder of his contract.
So i look at it this way and ask people this, take bias away, take your love for him away and look at Darren Fletcher the footballer, would you like him on the pitch vs United if he played for Liverpool, i know i would, so what does that tell you? If this is his last season at United, where is he going to go after this, Chelsea/Barcelona/City/PSG? Of course he isn't because he's not good enough, so if he's not good enough for them, how is he good enough for United?
Like Hargreaves, if/when he leaves United he will struggle to find ANY club (never mind big club) it's too of a big risk for clubs to give him any kind of contract with his illness.
His time here is done IMO. Don't know what he gives the team that cleverley can't.
Wow, I am Cleverley's biggest fan but Fletch is the player I'd turn to in big pressure games. Cool as a cucumber and, given that he hasn't played competitively all summer, I think he did well and will be one of our main experience players, kinda like Giggs was.
That last sentence is just silly.
Partly because Hargreaves had an ongoing, unresolved injury when he left United - while Fletcher has had curative surgery for his condition - but mainly because Hargreaves signed for the wealthiest club in the country after leaving United.
Re Fletcher's contract situation. A good season will earn him an extension. A poor season won't. Put away your crystal ball, stop making definitive predictions about the future and let's wait and see what Fletcher has to offer. So far so good.
He plays the ball forwards for a start.
I agree with the first part. For me and I've said this a few years now, he is only still here through sentiment. We've been good to Fletch throughout he's illness (and rightly so, you don't kick a guy whilst he is down etc) but for me now he isn't good enough. He wasn't my favorite player before the illness, now I just think he is a waste of a squad place and wage.
You're saying that because they paid him when he couldn't play, they won't pay him now he can? Daft comment.
You obviously missed the part where he had successful surgery. His illness is now done. The question is whether having had such a stop start few years he can get back up to that peak level of fitness and performance aged 30. There's no guarantees there, but that's very different from having an unresolved injury.
Galactico mentality. 'Every player in the entire squad has to be a world star.'
The truth is that a balanced squad has a range of players and characters in there, and no, not every one of them is going to strike fear into the hearts of our opponents. Did Ji Sung Park, or Ronny Johnson or Brian Mclair keep our opponents awake at night? Probably not, but they were all important cogs in winning machines. I think even the most ardent Fletcher fan knows he's not going to be forcing Vidal or Strootman out of the first team. But that's very different from saying he has no role at the club.
Better than Fellaini/Cleverley atm. Not impressive though.
This. He offers quite a bit of composure to the team and midfield in particular. He's very good when the team has possession in that he gets the attacking players involved and can pass the ball around at a fast pace. He's composed on the ball, and is technically proficient as well. After a full pre-season with us, he can (hopefully) improve his defensive awareness and be able to cover more ground.
His leadership is also vital to us now that Vidic, Rio, and Evra aren't here. He's one of the few players who gets what Man. Utd. is all about. He's gone through the worst, and he's recovered from such a horrible adversity to come back and play football. If he can't be classified as a leader, then I don't know who is.
Plus, he's a perfect backup option in this team when fully fit. I don't expect him to be a box-to-box midfielder anymore, but as a defensive midfielder, he's a great backup player for this team. I'd rather have him in the team than Fellaini and Anderson at this moment in time.
That's utterly ridiculous. He's been at United over a decade and played hundreds of games at the highest level.
You cant "cure" ulcerative colitis or "crohns disease" you always have it, all surgery does is cut out the part of the bowel that is badly affected.
Its an auto immune disorder, he will always have it.
As such there is no way you can bet on his long term health as he could literally be struck down again with a chronic case of it tomorrow.
On a side note, I have this mentality. I'm sick of how people think every single member of the team has to be world class/a star player. Players like Fletcher are invaluable members to any football club.
Says a lot about our current midfield if a guy who has been ill with a serious illness over the last 2/3 years is still considered one of our better midfielders.
It's not so far so good at all and you don't need a crystal ball, it's just using common sense and seeing things from a business pov.
It is this kind of sentimentality that will have the club falling behind all the other elite clubs. Look at what Barcelona did with Abidal when he had liver cancer, they didn't even pay him during that period and when he finally came back , they didn't renew his contract and he went off to Monaco. Fletcher is not good enough to play at this level, in fact he even had a good game or two when he started last year and got everyone excited (Swansea at OT I think it was), then he was completely out of his depth against the rest of our opposition (comfortably one of our worst performers and that is saying something). Right now the only one of our midfielders(excluding Herrera) who has anything to offer is Carrick, and that is if he can even return to his 12/13 form. It is embarrassing how far we have declined over these last few years in terms of squad quality, we have a 30 year old with a stomach condition, a useless 6ft5 microphone/mop and an average side passer who lives off a couple of good games from the 11/12 season.
Also people can stop with the "not every player has to be world class" comment. No-one is asking that, we just need a set of decent midfielders, right now we have a pile of shite. No point bringing up comparisons with players like Park Ji Sung because he is comfortably better than what we have right now (excluding Herrera again)
Also people can stop with the "not every player has to be world class" comment. No-one is asking that, we just need a set of decent midfielders, right now we have a pile of shite. No point bringing up comparisons with players like Park Ji Sung because he is comfortably better than what we have right now (excluding Herrera again)
There really is little to no difference in there passing patterns when they both played at the base of midfield.
No. That is incorrect. UC is confined to the large colon. That's a key difference between UC and Crohn's (which can affect any part of the GI tract and is impossible to cure) Remove the colon and UC is cured*.
*there are some variants with extra-colonic symptoms, affecting eyes and joints but we have to take Fletcher's word that this isn't the type of disease he has
Nonsense.
You can certainly argue that the patience we showed Nani and Anderson (and, more recently, Young and Valencia) has hindered us but sticking by Fletcher hasn't harmed us in the slightest. Any more than the patience we showed OGS when he was out for so long. If anything, the loyalty we have always show homegrown or long-standing servants of the club us part of what made us great under SAF. Last season was a brutal example of how good Fergie has always been at getting a team that, on paper, is inferior to many rivals to punch above it's weight. It is precisely the kind of bond between the club and the player which has meant that our manager was able to get the extra % of effort and commitment which makes all the difference over a season. It's only a few days since Evra was eulogising about what a special club United is to play for, how he's felt like part of a family. I've no doubt this is reflected in the performances we've seen from him on the pitch.
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We shall see then, both are equally horrible, so lets hope its done with then.
I know I'm being pedantic but they really aren't. Given the choice for me it's UC all the way. Crohn's can flare up at any point from your mouth to your anus, at any time. That's a hell of a life sentence. It's also associated with full-thickness lesions, causing perforations and strictures.
UC is nasty because it's strongly linked with cancer but you always have the knowledge that you can go nuclear and get your large bowel removed, which is - to all intents and purposes - curative. No such option if you have Crohn's.
So you think that Fletchers stomach condition is going to have(or has had) no effect on his performances? What made him so good between 08 and 10 was his mobility, stamina/energy and aggression from the midfield, this is inevitably going to take a hit on him. It isn't comparable at all to our other players, especially the ones that you are referring to in 12/13 which were Rio, Vidic, Giggs and Evra. Vidic had a injury but he was immense when he came back and Rio had his bad back I guess, but we worked around that. When it comes to Fletcher, we are talking about a 2/3 year condition here, he is never ever going to be close to the player he was before and he even admitted himself that he doesn't have the same attributes as before (the ones that made him so effective at his peak)
All of that remains to be seen. As I (and Fletcher said) he's essentially cured. It's definitely possible that being so long out of the game means he'll never get back anywhere near his best. It's also possible that he'll put this behind him, kick on from this pre-season and get back to the Fletcher who played so well 4 years ago. 30 years old is young for a modern footballer and he's always looked after himself very well (teetotal etc.) Who's to say that his enforced sabbatical won't mean he ages better than other footballers? As he approaches his mid-30s, he may actually feel the benefit of having put his legs and joints through much less mileage than other players his age.
There's a lot of unknowns about the next few years for Fletcher. My main beef here is people talking with absolute certainty about what he can or can't achieve. I doubt even his doctor could be as dogmatic about his future health and fitness as we're seeing from a lot of posts in this thread.
Yeah, pedantic would be the right word.
So long as I'm educating the ignorant I can live with that description.
Got to agree with Pogue here. It's a wait and see with Fletcher. Anyone making definitive statements right now is a bit silly, to put it mildly.
Nobody deserved to score the winning penalty tonight more than Fletcher. From start to finish Fletch bossed this game and in the second half he actually went up a gear. I lost count of the amount of times he was there to win the ball in the midfield from Inter. Again, another player who looked his old self. I remember how, with Rooney and Evra, Fletcher carried us on his back in 2009/10. That 4-3 against City, those Champions league ties with Milan, Fletcher really was stepping into the line of succession after Robson, Ince, and Keane that season. For both him and United it was a tragedy that his illness struck so devastatingly the following season. If Fletch can get back to that level Juve can stick their demands. There are few midfielders in the game today that can match what Fletcher produced in that two year period between 2008 and 2010.
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He had a good game, passed it well and read Inter's attacks nicely.
It's very possible LVG will decide against spending on another CM after seeing Fletch tonight....If Fletch can consistently maintain his performance levels then he should be the new captain going into the season
I honestly doubt he'll be swayed by a friendly against a sluggish Inter that parked the bus, it's good to see Fletcher have a good game but I think we should be wary of getting carried away, the PL is a whole different animal with the pace and physicality ramped up significantly from what we have been playing on this tour.
I'd love to see Fletch back in his pomp but i'd not feel comfortable relying on him. One thought though may be to play him and then try and pick up Strootman in January.
I completely agree but I just don't think there are any CM's out there of the required level who are available.....I think LVG might be realizing this now too
Well I don't know about that as I think Vidal is available for the right price, the way he and Juve have dealt with this is inviting it IMO, but we shall see.
Fletcher has arguably been our most consistent performer in pre-season. Best player last night, by a margin.
I know it pains many of ye to hear it but he's played his way into our best XI, come the start of the season. If we do sign Vidal, based on the three games so far (taking into account the varying standard of the opposition) I'd play Fletcher alongside him before I'd play Herrera in our first PL game.
I know it pains many of ye to hear it but he's played his way into our best XI, come the start of the season. If we do sign Vidal, based on the three games so far (taking into account the varying standard of the opposition) I'd play Fletcher alongside him before I'd play Herrera in our first PL game.
his first game wasn't good but yesterday was such a relief. Seeing him play that well is really making me happy. What a fighter with a big heart!
Very good game from him, although I doubt he will be able to do this in EPL week in week out. I think this role suits him.
I'd take Fletcher over Carrick.
I'd take Fletcher over Carrick.
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