Why restrict the argument to this season? Its arbitrary. Before the Chelsea match you wouldn't have said Giggs belongs in central midfield in big games. Suddenly he's proven himself ahead of Scholes who done it in a bazillion matches and Anderson who started in many a big match last year
Central midfield this season...
- Thread starter Pogue Mahone
- Start date
When Anderson played great in a midfield two in the big matches last season, he was always paired with Hargreaves.
I'm restricting the argument to this season because this thread is about this season.
I think Scholes is on the decline and - while he's still capable of superb performances - he is very inconsistent and has really struggled to achieve or maintain any kind of form, particularly against quality opponents - going all the way back to his dreadful performance in the Super Cup, if not even earlier.
As for Anderson, he's having a poor season too. I'm not entirely sure why this is. The injury didn't help. Whatever, I get a sense of dread when I see him starting in a midfield two. The results when he has done so, have confirmed my fears.
I think Scholes is on the decline and - while he's still capable of superb performances - he is very inconsistent and has really struggled to achieve or maintain any kind of form, particularly against quality opponents - going all the way back to his dreadful performance in the Super Cup, if not even earlier.
As for Anderson, he's having a poor season too. I'm not entirely sure why this is. The injury didn't help. Whatever, I get a sense of dread when I see him starting in a midfield two. The results when he has done so, have confirmed my fears.
Dunno about that.
His first start of the season was against Portsmouth on the left, and he was decent enough.
The two games after that, against Liverpool and Zenit, weren't so good.
But then he played very well in the Carling Cup against Middlesborough in a midfield three, not that that really means anything of note, and had a very good game against Bolton I thought. Both him and Fletcher.
He then got a run of games alongside Fletcher against Blackburn, Celtic and West Ham and they looked like they were well on their way to forming a good partnership, dominating possession and looking to have a better understanding than with other centre mids.
He got a game against Hull next alongside Carrick, and we played quite well creatively, but the game was a bit more end to end(for want of a better word/phrase) than you'd want it to be really. Up next was Arsenal, which really I thought he did quite well in, as did the whole team. We had the better chances, more possession and the fact it was end-to-end had nothing to do with Anderson, it's just how we end up playing Arsenal. So that'd be my answer to your question about when Anderson has played well in a midfield two, as well, although I'm pretty sure you'll disagree.
After that he played Villareal in a midfield three and was one of our best players, and then in a midfield three again against Blackburn when he was again one of our best players.
He then got a game beside Giggs which didn't quite work out all that well, even though he got an assist with a nicely weighted through ball he wasn't all that impressive and we drew 2-2.
The rest of his matches from then on have been Cup games, against Fulham, Derby twice and Southampton, besides the 1-0 win against Bolton and the loss against Liverpool, both of which he played alongside Carrick but with completely different results performances-wise. Thought he did very well against Bolton and dominated that game, quite the opposite against Liverpool.
Think it's harsh to say he's having a poor season.
Ok, how's about we substitute "poor" with "not very good" and qualify that by pointing out that he's generally been very good in a midfield three but when played in a midfield two he's been much less impressive, with at least one poor/mediocre performance to match every good one.
Does that work for you?
Does that work for you?
Yep.
Although then again you'd expect such inconsistencies from a young player that's so relatively inexperienced, would you not? So then I can't see why there's an increasing amount of people who are worried about him long-term in a midfield two.
This does seem to suggest that a consistent pairing is more important than rotation in our midfield.
Yep, and that makes sense.
Although I think we could work something out around having two consistent pairings, which would help with creating an understanding in the team and keeping it fresh for the rest of the season.
Something like Anderson/Scholes-Carrick and Fletcher-Giggs.
When you think about it, and with quite a few people voicing their worries about just the general quality of our midfield, it's interesting to see that if we had everyone fully fit we could have three proven partnerships in Fletcher-Giggs, Hargreaves-Anderson and Scholes-Carrick who give us a nice variety of options as well as back-up.
I think the biggest thing to take out of that post about Anderson is Fletcher's importance really, he's formed a good partnership with every one of our centre mids this season and has stepped up to become such an asset to the team in terms of giving us more options, just like Carrick last season.
It also adds to the growing weight of evidence that sticking Fletcher in the middle seems to be the most effective way to get the best out of all our other central midfielders.
Yep, it shows selflessness, versatility but above all an understanding of the game and your teammates, I'd never really look at Fletcher as someone who's got great 'footballing intelligence', but it's seemed like that's what he's shown this season.
Carrick's shown that a number of times over the last year and a half too.
Carrick's shown that a number of times over the last year and a half too.
I agree the Fletcher + Carrick combo has proved to be rather reliable, I also believe it lacks the abillity to join the attack and relise on carrick feeding the forwards. The inclusion of Giggs in midfield, along side Carrick or Fletcher is more penetrative IMON. Were we have gone wrong, is playing both Scholes & Giggs together as they haven't got the legs for it. Agree Anderson is experiencing 2nd season blues, though we shouldn't be relying on him this early in his development if honest.
A question to the forum, is Nani injured as i am kinda confused he hasn't been included in last 2 games as i though they would have been ideal for him to shine. Understand he can be unrealiable but believe if fit, now is the time for him to stake his claim.
A question to the forum, is Nani injured as i am kinda confused he hasn't been included in last 2 games as i though they would have been ideal for him to shine. Understand he can be unrealiable but believe if fit, now is the time for him to stake his claim.
You seem to have a burning desire to convince us of both Fletcher's brilliance and the decline of Paul Scholes. Quite why you feel the need to bang on and on about Scholes in this way, in multiple threads, is beyond me. It's perfectly clear to me that he's been unable to reach his usual imperious form simply because he hasn't, for various reasons, been able to put a run of games together and find his rhythm. I'll never understand some people's apparent need to constantly write off player's careers. Really, if there is one player I trust to know when they've not got it anymore, it's Paul Scholes.
My own opinion on our midfield is this - The team in general has lacked the coherency and balance of recent seasons so far this year and playing Fletcher compensates for this. He's fantastic to have in the squad because if your team is lacking something his busybody, high energy approach really compensates.
In recent seasons when the team simply flowed forward with greater coherency we were able to play Scholes and Carrick together as a midfield two. I don't believe a decline in Scholes is the reason this doesn't work as effectively anymore, I believe it is deficiencies elsewhere in our team which dictates that Fergie has to pick a central midfield able to make up for this. If all else fails, Fergie will always want to dominate central midfield and Fletcher always enables us to do this. Basically, I feel Fletcher is a great player to have when times are tough - I'm sure he'll rise to even greater prominence between now and the end of the season.
Ultimately, however, a club like United will always want to do more than simply 'hold' the midfield, and that is where Fletcher will be found wanting. Picking him and Carrick together means, for example, you effectively sacrifice all hope of getting goals from your central midfield players.
Like I said above, the short comings of Carrick, Fletcher and Anderson are what enables Giggs especially, as well as Scholes, to remain such a crucial player for United.
Will never happen though. Clubs like United have too many games on too many different fronts to be able to pick two midfielders and hope to play them consistently and regularly throughout the season. As I said above, we've done an amazing job of picking the right players for the right jobs - ie rotating intelligently and successfully - until the wheels fell off in the last couple of weeks. I'm pretty sure we'll continue to rotate in this way though, and that SAF will start getting it right again.
Out of the 26 games I bothered to check in the league, i.e. ignoring 3, this is the breakdown of our centre mid partnerships:
Carrick-Anderson - W 2 D 0 L 1 GF 6 GA 7
Carrick-Scholes - W 4 D 1 L 0 GF 8 GA 2
Carrick-Fletcher - W 6 D 2 L 0 GF 12 GA 2
Carrick-Giggs - W 1 D 0 L 0 GF 5 GA 0
Anderson-Fletcher - W 3 D 0 L 0 GF 6 GA 0
Fletcher-Scholes - W 1 D 0 L 0 GF 1 GA 0
Fletcher-Giggs - W 2 D 1 L 0 GF 8 GA 1
Scholes-Giggs - W 0 D 0 L 1 GF 0 GA 2
Scholes-O'Shea W 1 D 0 L 0 GF 1 GA 0
Carrick-Anderson-Scholes W 0 D 0 L 1 GF 1 GA 2
So you can pretty much draw the conclusion that goals-wise, Fletcher and Giggs are the best partnership, with Anderson and Fletcher second.
Results-wise, Anderson and Fletcher is the best.
Carrick-Fletcher is our most used partnership, and has done very well as we would all know. Carrick-Scholes second, and it's done well too.
Scholes-Giggs doesn't seem to work, but I'm sure most of us would've assumed that anyway.
Oh, and it sort of proves that Carrick-Fletcher is fine in terms of attacking impetus, it gives the attacking players more freedom to play their natural game anyway, which suits Berbatov and is probably part of the reason why we've played that partnership as often as we have.
Carrick-Giggs should be tried more often!
I don't have a "burning desire" to convince anyone of anything. I'm just making the point that Scholes is having a fairly poor season. I'm inclined to think this is because of his age catching up with him, which happens to everyone eventually. You obviously disagree, whilst being unable to come up with any other reason, other than being him unable to "put a run of games together". Tell me, why do you think - injury aside - he's not being picked enough to play this "run of games" you seem to think he needs?
As for Fletcher's "brilliance", please point where I've described him as anything of the sort? In your own time. I stand by my comments that he has played in all our best performances this season and should be part of our strongest eleven. I have absolutely no idea why this opinion is so offensive to you.
Which is a fecking bizarre claim to make when you bear in mind that Fletcher and Carrick have each, individually, scored more goals from central midfield this season than all the goals from Scholes, Giggs and Anderson added together.
We've been a bit poop going forward all season, Fletcher wont change that, Anderson, Scholes or Giggs might, one of them should be partnering Carrick most matches
The same Darren Fletcher who's scored more goals than those other three put together?
Individual goals aside, you're completely ignoring the fact that Fletcher is the one player common to the highest scoring midfield partnerships all season. It's been midfields comprising one or other of Scholes and Anderson (or God forbid, both together) that have been "poop going forwards"
It's not about him scoring goals, it's about the forward line receiving good ball, he hasn't got the passing
Why write 'injuries aside'? Clearly this has a lot to do with him not getting as many games as he needs to find his best form.
The second reason I'd attribute to him not getting enough games is what I outlined above - I think with the team struggling as a whole to find the balance and coherence of recent seasons SAF has at times preferred to play Fletcher as he makes up for our deficiencies elsewhere. I'm sure Fergie retains his faith in Scholes though and I also think that he'd ideally like to return to the Scholes-Carrick partnership on a more consistent basis when circumstances allow.
Very clever. I see you're playing the 'overly-literal' card again. Is that on page 1 or page 2 of How to debate like an Annoying Twat? I forget, sorry.
fecking bizarre? Really? They've scored 5 Premiership goals between them this season, and you're happy to promote that as the partnership which should take this club forward, with just Hargreaves and Anderson in reserve?
General inconsistency in his game, it happens. Suppose that's a kind of chicken and egg thing too.
Might be because he's on the decline, might just be because he's taking his time to get back into the rhythm of things like he does quite often after injury.
He's had inconsistent seasons before though, so it could just be that he's simply having an inconsistent season. Like Giggs last year. Or Rooney the year before. Or Carrick for the first half of last season, and then you said he seems to have a dip in Spring as well, so that'd be two periods of inconsistency there.
Age obviously doesn't help, but I think we'd be better off giving Scholes the benefit of the doubt, he has only started 12 league and Champions League games like.
You have an overly simplistic view on everything.
It's just hilarious that you'd allow that statistic to convince you that Fletcher genuinely poses a greater goal threat than Giggs or Scholes. Hilarious.
Yeah, silly me assessing goal threat using a misleading statistic like number of goals scored. Hilarious.
Your talking about 1 or 2 goals from a minuscule total for all the players involved, Anderson threatens no goals, the rest are much of a muchness, Fletcher is not Frank fecking Lampard
Yeah, you could have just used your eyes, common sense and a decade's worth of evidence to the contrary. Clearly you're right though, Fletcher poses an amazing threat on goal - how could we argue with such brilliant evidence?
You're right, it is fecking hilarious. You seem to have genuinely lost it here...
What are these "deficiencies" elsewhere that Fletcher makes up for? They're obviously not defensive deficiencies, with our world class back four. This must mean you're talking about deficiencies going forward. But hold on, you previously claimed that Fletcher offers very little going forward so what the feck is the point you're trying to make here?
feck knows. You clearly own a copy. Look it up.
With regards to taking the club forwards I'm hopeful that Fletcher, Carrick, Hargreaves and Anderson will be good enough. This is obviously dependent on Hargreaves putting his injury woes behind him and Anderson deleivering on his undoubted potential. Neither of these scenarios can be guaranteed but I'm willing to be optimistic about this.
With regards to the topic at hand i.e. this season (the clue is in the thread title) I don't think our midfield has been at it's best, due to the absence of Hargreaves, Anderson not kicking on as I'd hoped and Scholes not performing as well as in previous years. Hence, I would like to see more of Carrick, Fletcher and Giggs and less of Scholes and Anderson. It seems that you disagree with this opinion but you have yet to provide anything like a plausible rationale or any kind of evidence to back this up, other than some vague mumbling about "deficiencies elsewhere" being the reason for Fletcher being so effective.
Let's just nail down your opinion here.
You genuinely believe, based on the season so far, that Giggs, Scholes and Anderson provide the greatest goal threat from central midfield in our squad?
I mean, seriously, is that your honest opinion?
I've already mentioned it several times. We've lacked the cohesion and balance of recent seasons, in general. I'd say this is primarily because Fergie has never totally found the right balance up front with Berbatov coming in for Tevez, and also that some of our players started off the season very slowly - such as Ronaldo. So for whatever reason, we've never really clicked into the kind of form we showed last season.
Have you not noticed that we've won a lot of games 1-0? Do you not see that in scrappy games where we never really click, having a whole-hearted scrapper out there like Fletcher is going to be better for us?
Secondly, although you're right that we have a 'world class defense', you've presumably noticed that it's been decimated by injuries and that we've had an unsettled back four as a result? This is another reason why I feel Fergie has leaned towards Fletcher in favour of Scholes in certain games - he offers greater protection to our back four when that four contains relatively inexperienced players like Evans. Scholes, with his tackling, would have been a liability in some games this year - that has feck all to do with aging though, he's never been able to tackle better than he does now.
Are you working as part of a team? Or is your use of 'let's' simply a part of your perennial habit to talk down to everyone?
Yes, seriously, honestly, it is. Really. Absolutely. I'd never stake anything on Fletcher scoring - somehow I'd prefer to see chances fall to Giggs and Scholes. Can't think why. I'd even rather they fell to Anderson.
Don't get me wrong, I rate Fletcher and think he's good at what he does best. I just don't think that a club with a tradition of entertaining yet winning football should ever even consider the idea of going into the future relying solely on the CM quartet you suggest.
Not sure how you see the use of "let's" as talking down. I though that could be used in the collaborative sense as in "us" meaning you and I, the two people having the discussion. If you insist on taking offence at everything I say then please go right ahead
The CM quartet I'm suggesting relies heavily on Anderson blossoming into a really top class central midfielder so yeah, there's no guarantee it will work. Despite his woes in front of goal I have a hunch that he will become a really potent attacking threat. This is despite a lot of evidence to the contrary so I could well be wrong. If his development stalls then I agree we will need to get someone else in.
That said, I rate Fletcher's work in and around the box higher than you do and I think it's harsh to dismiss him as a water carrier who will never create or score goals. He's started to make some great late runs into the box, generally looks like one of the central midfielders who will get onto the end of something and is still young enough to improve this aspect of his game still further (in the same way that Carrick never even looked like scoring for Spurs but has become a lot more potent in the last couple of seasons)
The central midfield has been owned the last two games we've played, and the fact we've lost those games highlights their importance. Against Liverpool the schoolboy errors we made in defence covered over the major ownage we received in midfield. Against Fulham, we were just overrun in the first half.
Who is currently in form? Fletcher maybe, and Giggs possibly, but he was overrun against Fulham (I guess Scholes getting sent off was the reason for that), Scholes-no, Carrick-no (but he has been good this season), Anderson-no.
I'm not being knee-jerk, I accept the midfield have had some brilliant performances this season (Chelsea game most prominent example), but it's just the fact that at the moment they're out of form. It also doesn't help that we have no fixed midfield so there is no real stability.
If only Giggs was Carrick's age. A fixed midfield of Giggs-Carrick would probably be the answer.
Who is currently in form? Fletcher maybe, and Giggs possibly, but he was overrun against Fulham (I guess Scholes getting sent off was the reason for that), Scholes-no, Carrick-no (but he has been good this season), Anderson-no.
I'm not being knee-jerk, I accept the midfield have had some brilliant performances this season (Chelsea game most prominent example), but it's just the fact that at the moment they're out of form. It also doesn't help that we have no fixed midfield so there is no real stability.
If only Giggs was Carrick's age. A fixed midfield of Giggs-Carrick would probably be the answer.
Aye, tis a shame. Although I'm not convinced that Giggsy at 25/26 would have been able to play in CM, that seemed to come to him later in his career.
Fletcher definitely gets himself into the box a lot more often than any other centre mid at United. No doubt about that.
Giggs at Carrick's age would be running up and down the left wing instead of Park though
Yeah, I should have said if only Giggs was 26-27 and playing as he currently does in midfield.
Obviously, going back a few years in Giggs' career and he'd be on the left wing.
Seriously though, the fact Giggs can't play more than one game a week at 90minutes and United play a lot of midweek games is possibly our main problem in midfield. Having said that though, we should have more than enough cover for him.
Really, a lot more? He's scored twice in 22 Premiership games. Hardly earth shattering.
Fletcher is 25 already. He's never shown me any evidence that he can step up to the plate and be relied upon to deliver even 10 goals a season. As you're so hung up on goal stats, feel free to look up Scholes and Giggs' career statistics. They may be used deeper these days which makes them less likely to end up in scoring positions, but I'd still far rather a chance fell to someone of their proven class than Fletcher - who I've seen screw up way too many chances in front of goal so far in his United career.
I'm hoping that Anderson will develop into a midfielder with the same attributes that Giggs has shown this season. An ability to dribble the ball from defence into attack, combined with creative, incisive passing. He's definitely got the potential to do this, it's just a shame he's still so raw at a time when Giggs is no longer able to play week in, week out.