Carrick is one of Man United, England's most underrated players ever

2006-11 is indisputably the greatest period in the club's history (four titles, three CL finals), and during that time only Van Der Sar, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Carrick, Rooney and Ronaldo (until he left) were indisputably first choice. That's not a coincidence. We played 31 CL knockout games in those five years and off the top of my head the only one Carrick missed was the second leg vs Schalke, when he was rested. Again, that's not some fluke.

Chabon said:

2006-11 is indisputably the greatest period in the club's history (four titles, three CL finals), and during that time only Van Der Sar, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Carrick, Rooney and Ronaldo (until he left) were indisputably first choice. That's not a coincidence. We played 31 CL knockout games in those five years and off the top of my head the only one Carrick missed was the second leg vs Schalke, when he was rested. Again, that's not some fluke.

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Definitely. He was SAF's persistent first choice for so long very good reason.

berbatrick said:

Yup, I really don't know where Alonso gets this reputation from. He was exposed even worse in the big CL games. Hopeless for Madrid against an organised Bayern team in 2012, and cut to piees for Pep's Bayern more than once, he got pressed and couldn't handle it. He also played with far better partners for the time he gets rated (Mascherano, Gerrard, Khedira, Ozil, Modric, Kroos, Thiago, vs Scholes, Anderson, Fletcher, Giggs, Cleverley, Phil Jones). He was in a midfield 2 with Prk Ji Sung against Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi all occupying that space ffs.

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this is when he was "scared of the ball" apparently

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Some midfielders huff and puff all game and are nowhere as effective as he was, he made it look easy and his nonchalant style may have contributed to people underrating him over the years.

You get a lot of support for him from Utd supporters, but the real test is to see what other supporters thought about him. When I have looked on other supporters pages, (my son supports Wanderers and my grandson Arsenal, for some reason) and they have discussed best midfielders, Robson, Keane, Beckham and Scholes have been mentioned aplenty from Utd, but i have never seen Carrick mentioned.

Chabon said:

2006-11 is indisputably the greatest period in the club's history (four titles, three CL finals), and during that time only Van Der Sar, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Carrick, Rooney and Ronaldo (until he left) were indisputably first choice. That's not a coincidence. We played 31 CL knockout games in those five years and off the top of my head the only one Carrick missed was the second leg vs Schalke, when he was rested. Again, that's not some fluke.

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Was that the season he was benched for Anderson and Cleverley until they got injured ?

Jeppers7 said:

Was that the season he was benched for Anderson and Cleverley until they got injured ?

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No SAF said Carrick used to start slow and really come into the games when it started raining. We were also traditionally slow starters in the league in those years. The Anderson-Cleverly thing was never gonna last once teams figured out you could just let them have the ball and they couldn’t do much.

It's one of those opinions that everyone holds, yet thinks they are the only ones that do.

Nice to see that even an 'abu' journalist couldn't resist a glowing praise.

wolvored said:

You get a lot of support for him from Utd supporters, but the real test is to see what other supporters thought about him. When I have looked on other supporters pages, (my son supports Wanderers and my grandson Arsenal, for some reason) and they have discussed best midfielders, Robson, Keane, Beckham and Scholes have been mentioned aplenty from Utd, but i have never seen Carrick mentioned.

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Back in the days when we watched a lot of football with my friends, Carrick was never a topic.
Like some posters have mentioned, overrated amongst United fans, underrated by others.

Jeppers7 said:

Was that the season he was benched for Anderson and Cleverley until they got injured ?

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No, the whole Cleverley-Anderson thing came after that period, and lasted less than three and a half games. I really don't know why some bizarre mythology has been developed around that pairing. Fletcher and Anderson were the most regular pair early on in 11/12, and Carrick didn't start a league match until late November for reasons that have never entirely been clear.

However, after coming back into the side he started 61 of Fergie's last 65 PL matches. That run was his best ever for United, during which he was arguably the best CM in the league, despite never having a consistent partner. However the team around him definitely dropped down a level from the preceding glory years.

ivaldo said:

When everyone and his dog is saying someone is underrated, kind of means they aren't really underrated anymore.

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Kind of agree with this. But it is very natural to be protective of one's own

The reason Carrick is rated as he is, is because the midfield was the weakest area of the team during his time at the club. That's not a slight on him, just a fact of where the strengths of the team lay.

He did a great job and was an absolutely key man in midfield but whereas the 1999 treble team was built off that midfield 4, the success of teams in Carrick's era were built off the defence and forwards with amazing individual ability.

The best way to sum up Carrick is that he managed to replace part of what Keane gave to the team. For a time, United tried to replace Keane's leadership, energy and ball winning ability and I think they realised what they were really missing without Keane was the ability to control games in midfield and dictate play from deep. That's what Carrick coukd bring to the team.

They then added the leadership from the back in Vidic and Evra and top quality in attack to compensate for what Carrick couldn't do.

He was a key member of that team. He just wasn't the difference maker.

wolvored said:

You get a lot of support for him from Utd supporters, but the real test is to see what other supporters thought about him. When I have looked on other supporters pages, (my son supports Wanderers and my grandson Arsenal, for some reason) and they have discussed best midfielders, Robson, Keane, Beckham and Scholes have been mentioned aplenty from Utd, but i have never seen Carrick mentioned.

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You are comparing him with the ATGs of the club, which, obviously he is a tier below. But he is easily a tier above the likes of Butt, Fletcher, Ince, Stiles, McClair etc. You can say he is in a category of his own for CMs.

UNITED ACADEMY said:

He was definitely underrated in a sense of United fans also don’t see and recognise how good he was. Lot of United fans underrated him because first, he is not Roy Keane which a player you can’t easily find and second, they disappointed that he got bullied by Barcelona trio Busquest, Xavi & Iniesta twice in final which stupid thing to even think that it’s fair for one man in midfield paired with Anderson or 38 years old Giggs could do something against those three together. I’m living on this as proof because I had arguments before in 2011 to 2013 with lot of them in YouTube and United official website forum.

He’s only started to get more recognition or appreciation by United fans in 2012/2013, mainly because of how he managed to show everyone that he is the one man in midfield playing next to average midfielders like Jones or Cleverley.

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Yeah I'd definitely agree with that last bit. Even then RVP took most of the plaudits, although rightly so...but that was Carrick's best season for me.

He did get a lot of criticism in his time, particularly early on when people hadn't really adapted to or sussed out the type of player he was, but I think he also had a couple of quite prolonged spells where he really wasn't near his best. Can't remember the exact season but there was one where he basically just refused to pass the ball forwards for about 6 months.

At his best he was quite a unique player in that he wasn't really aggressive or commanding, but was still really effective at breaking up opposition play and being a playmaker at the same time. He read the game really well.

IMO his defensive skills are very underrated. People talk about how good his positioning was but his tackling was equally good.


Look at the long passes per 90 mins and accuracy. Wish we had someone like him in this midfield.

roonster09 said:

IMO his defensive skills are very underrated. People talk about how good his positioning was but his tackling was equally good.

	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14
Tackles/90	2.9​	2.8​	3.2​	2.5​	2.3​
Interceptions/90	2​	2.6​	2.5​	2.2​	3​
Long Passes	5.8​	5.6​	6.4​	6.1​	6.5​
Long pass accuracy	74.36%​	75.68%​	82.05%​	75.31%​	80.25%​

Look at the long passes per 90 mins and accuracy. Wish we had someone like him in this midfield.

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I know what you mean. I wish the same. It's kinda like how many people think of Roy Keane as a one dimensional destroyer when in reality he was so much more than that.