Come on then, our with it. How exactly are you related to Michael Carrick?
That's a very very generous critique of Carrick's season, bordering on scandalously disingenuous!
Alas poor Carrick...WTF has happened?
- Thread starter Carl
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That's a very very generous critique of Carrick's season, bordering on scandalously disingenuous!
He was certainly not poor against Valencia. He played a big part in us coming away from the Mestalla with a clean sheet.
Like I said, 5 games this season... 2 games in which he was excellent (Chelsea and Spurs), and 3 in which he was decent/good (Valencia, West Brom, Wolves).
I'm sorry but how is that a "very real" indication of poor form?
The fact he's only started 5 games so far is down to a combination of injury, Scholes' magnificent early-season form, and him being out of favour from last season.
Hopefully he's back in the starting XI to stay because we look far more sound defensively when he's in the side.
Very generous indeed.
I love Carrick when he's on form (Roma 7-1 form!) He makes our midfield tick, he keeps the tempo up with accurate first time passing that teams find difficult, He's difficult to pass, and he's like a quarterback dictating play from just in front of the back four.
This season he's just not been at the races. I'd actually question his fitness as he's been two beats behind the bar. Today fitness wise he seemed back in the ballpark. He's getting back to form.
To say that he's had 5 good games - no - I'm sorry, but no. Watch them again.
I love Carrick when he's on form (Roma 7-1 form!) He makes our midfield tick, he keeps the tempo up with accurate first time passing that teams find difficult, He's difficult to pass, and he's like a quarterback dictating play from just in front of the back four.
This season he's just not been at the races. I'd actually question his fitness as he's been two beats behind the bar. Today fitness wise he seemed back in the ballpark. He's getting back to form.
To say that he's had 5 good games - no - I'm sorry, but no. Watch them again.
To those for whom the mere sight of a Michael Carrick debate sends endorphins rushing to the brain, here's hoping he stays good enough to not be sold but bad enough to still regularly irritate.
Morally I have to give him credit here, I have to say that Carrick played a good game. He was what we needed and he did his job well.
What on earth do passing statistics mean when all he does is pass the ball side-ways and hesitate on the ball.
His movement and positioning wasn't great either.
Several times in or near the edge of the box, he had an opportunity to slip a decent pass either out wide or through the middle. He didn't he played the easy bass backwards or a couple of yards sideways.
He had the opportunity, time, space to take a shot a couple of times and failed to do that. Opting for what I said above.
Edit: Hell, Look at the graph. How many of those pass's are into the box?
Carrack has no vision at the moment, always looking for the easy pass instead of the ball that is more risky but could cut up the the defence and lead to a goal.
And to those who'll point out that Fletcher was not better / even worse, I'm well aware of that, Fletchers form has been shocking this season. I really thought he'd kicked on after 2 great seasons.
His movement and positioning wasn't great either.
Several times in or near the edge of the box, he had an opportunity to slip a decent pass either out wide or through the middle. He didn't he played the easy bass backwards or a couple of yards sideways.
He had the opportunity, time, space to take a shot a couple of times and failed to do that. Opting for what I said above.
Edit: Hell, Look at the graph. How many of those pass's are into the box?
Carrack has no vision at the moment, always looking for the easy pass instead of the ball that is more risky but could cut up the the defence and lead to a goal.
And to those who'll point out that Fletcher was not better / even worse, I'm well aware of that, Fletchers form has been shocking this season. I really thought he'd kicked on after 2 great seasons.
Irish Legend is a man after my own heart
Can you imagine if these passing maps had existed during David Batty's time? :Shudder:
Can you imagine if these passing maps had existed during David Batty's time? :Shudder:
This "sideways pass" argument is fecking tiresome.
A successful sideways pass still lets you keep possession of the ball. Possession is key these days. You'd rather he attempted more hollywood passes, surrender possession and give the other team a chance to attack us?
If you look at a Scholes pass map you'll see most of his passes are sideways as well. Yet you don't say he's a bad passer do you?
A successful sideways pass still lets you keep possession of the ball. Possession is key these days. You'd rather he attempted more hollywood passes, surrender possession and give the other team a chance to attack us?
If you look at a Scholes pass map you'll see most of his passes are sideways as well. Yet you don't say he's a bad passer do you?
The thing is he is playing alongside Fletcher, he is supposedly the more creative of the two, if he doesn't take the responsibility of trying to drive our play and open up their defense like Scholes does then who is going to? I am not saying every pass has to be an attempt to create an opening but Carrick is hardly trying it at all, instead shifting the responsibility to someone else.
My guess is same people that moan about the sideways pass or backwards pass will complain when Anderson fails to make yet another Hollywood pass come off or didn't choose the more obvious option.
The whole idea of Carrick not playing forward balls is ludicrous. His job is not play long ball or defense cutting ball after ball - most those types of passes don't come off. His job is to keep possession of the ball and build up our play.
When our problem in giving up goals has been carelessly giving the ball away (like Neville hoofing it up against Everton or Scholes against Stoke) - it is important that we don't just hand other teams the initiative. We'll get taken to the cleaners if all our CMs do is try play forward killer balls every time.
Today was a very good controlled display from him IMO - something to really settle us down as we've been giving up leads because we hand back the initiative to teams too often this season with sloppy possession.
Carrick plays deep-lying midfielder so it's obvious that his passes will be more in the middle of the park as opposed to the final third. It is not his job to play near the box but rather behind Fletcher. If you watched the game you will see how he made quite a few key passes putting Park or Nani in space to run at Tottenham's defenders - one of our strengths in the game. Needless to say he definitely still has a wonderful passing range - his 40 yard pass to Berbatov towards the end was simply magnificent.
EDIT: I meant to post this as a response to the poster who said none of his passes were to a player in the box but my point stands regardless.
Exactly. Carrick suffers because his detractors want him to be something that he never has been or was never brought to this club to be. He does his role within the team very well.
There is the one camp that criticizes him because he isn't a driving force like Keano (because he was bought to replace him) and then there is the other camp that criticizes him because he isn't creative enough. Its all very predictable.
Can anyone get the chalkboard for Fletcher in yesterday's game?
Oh please. Carrick has hardly been good this season. Stop tryna hoodwink us all.
Wronger than wrong. One of the reasons Carrick was brought to the club was because of his excellent range of passing. For some reason over the last twelve months his passing range hasnt been anywhere near his proper standards for the most part. He now play in a more cagey fashion than what he naturally would in top form.
TBF to the lad he is tryng to play his way into form. One can udnertsand his caginess. For whenever he tried to be more ambitious he mostly plain lost the ball yesterday.
Yes. His way slowly to decent form.
Nani, Park and Berbatov. That's who. And they did quite a good job.
When Carrick and Fletcher play together we may not have as much attacking thrust from our central midfield, but it will be more solid and better defensively. It's about what is the best balance for the team as a whole. And considering how this season has gone, I'd say the Carrick-Fletch combo is just what we need to give us some stability.
He hasn't been as bad as some people have been saying though, either. Take out the one or two matches after his return from injury, and his form has certainly been better than last seasons (not that that would be hard). Hopefully the upswing continues.Oh please. Carrick has hardly been good this season. Stop tryna hoodwink us all.
He hasn't been good. He has been ok.
Roma 7-1
Newcastle 6-0 and 6-1
Spurs 4-0
etc....
Them two can give us thrust when on top form. Believe you me.
I donno, Fletcher in top form gives us good drive from midfield. Its just in recent games hes looked out of form which is why we look a little lack-luster in attack from CMF (lack of midfield runners), its not carricks job to offer us drive, we look to him to protect the back four and pick players out. Its Fletchers job to get box to box and hassle people.
Carrick-Fletcher pairing works and works pretty well but we seem to be at a point in time where both are trying to find some form.
Trust me, you're preaching to the choir here. I was one of the first and one of the biggest fans of the Carrick-Fletch combo. Even towards the end of the 06/07 season, two seasons before Fletch kicked on and became a top player, a season where Scholes was fantastic, I actually wanted to see Carrick-Fletch take over as our main midfield towards the end of the season.
It's not so much the two of them that give you the attacking thrust. It's the fact they are so solid and dependable it allows everybody else (barring the two central defenders) to get forward and concentrate more on the attacking part of their game. So the team as a whole can become more attacking.
Indeed. I'm hoping they get back to their true form. If they do few will live with our attack
Carrick just being Carrick again. I'm affraid. However because we haven't really got the quality in the centre he still adds steal which the likes of Gibson/Anderson can't. Even Scholes to an extent but that is more to age.
When all else fails bring out a chalkboard of 50 successful 10 yard passes left and right....
Heh, how did no-one else pick this up? So 'pass's into the box' are a measure of how much vision you have?
Here's Scholes last two league starts, how many of those pass's are in the box? 1. In 2 games. Are you going to tell me Scholesy has no vision?
People seem to judge players by assists and goals to much. Carrick does a job which isn't going to get him on MOTD, or tear up charts. He does what he needs however, and he does it well. People who complain about sidesways passing often don't know what they're talking about. Thing is if Park would have scored his relatively easy chance against Wolves from Carricks great ball these people would be loving him.
I love you, Brwned.
On a serious note, I agree. He keeps our possession of the ball and dictates pace, and I hope he slowly gets more and more adventurous... That'll help us out in spades.
Look at the chalkboard again. Is he really just passing the ball sideways?
Carrick's always been a progressive passer. Martin Jol once pointed out his ability to pick players out with forward passes is one of his greatest strengths. You can see on that chalkboard he did a decent job of doing exactly that on Saturday.
He rarely gets involved in creating things in the final third but that's not his job.
I was being sarcastic towards a certain poster who im convinced to this day is a member of the Carrick family household, I've already said i thought yesterday was much more like it from Carrick and thats hopefully a springboard for the rest of the season, hes still nowhere near the Carrick of 18 months ago and i think the fact some were calling it a brilliant display goes to show how low expectations have fallen for Carrick in the last year or so, Had that been Carrick of 3 years ago wed have all probably been quite underwhelmed by his display last night, But that yesterday was as good as ive seen him for some time and that's definitely encouraging.
But ill be honest the chalkboards irritate me, i really don't see the relevance of them, if i were to search a chalkboard for John O'Sheas passing last week at stoke i bet they'd show he had a high passing percentage ratio, does that mean he passed the ball well on the day? does it give any insight into his overall performance? seeing as fergie hauled him off halfway through the second half id say not. (not trying to turn this into an O'Shea discussion by the way just giving an example of why i don't like those bloody chalkboard things used as 'evidence' on a players performance)
He wasn't brilliant, I agree. But he had a good game.
The chalkboards clearly have a role to play in discussing a player's performance. If johnmufc says Carrick was great it doesn't mean that much but when he posts that chalkboard it adds to the impression I got watching the game. It was Carrick's best game in a while.
The chalkboards clearly have a role to play in discussing a player's performance. If johnmufc says Carrick was great it doesn't mean that much but when he posts that chalkboard it adds to the impression I got watching the game. It was Carrick's best game in a while.
The fact a half decent second half against Wolves reserves and a decent, but nothing to write home about performance against Spurs has generated such praise and excitement is a sign of his disastrous last 18 months. Carrick of 2006-early 09 was a very good midfielder and one who contributed hugely to our success, the one we've watched since has been an absolute liability and quite frankly, a waste of space.
Let's hope he does get it together again and starts showing the form we all know he's capable of but I severely doubt his chances of doing that. He looks almost haunted and a pale imitation of himself.
Let's hope he does get it together again and starts showing the form we all know he's capable of but I severely doubt his chances of doing that. He looks almost haunted and a pale imitation of himself.
I don't think you'll find anyone disagreeing there, and i really hope its a sign of things to come because Carrick on form can play a big role for us this season, if we can get something even close to the Carrick of 18 months ago then id be thrilled as we are without question a far better side with him in form than without.
What I find funny about all these threads about the midfielders is that yesterday we had a complete midfield (Nani, Park, Fletcher and Carrick) who would have been turfed out by the fans at one stage or another in the last few years ("not good enough")...
Well Nani's not a midfielder, Park and Fletcher should have been fecked off and Carrick's played rubbish for a year.
Oh behave.
Why's that then?
No, that's the Arsene Wenger school of squad transition. Give 'em a couple of seasons then feck 'em off for a younger model. Don't know if you've noticed peter but it doesn't work.