Delighted that he's staying on for another season. Yes, we may need another central midfielder and it is dangerous to rely on someone of his age who can't play every game, but he's still a superb player who has contributed a massive amount to us this season. With the experience and tradition he brings as well, I'll take him for another season in a heartbeat.
Paul Scholes | 2011/12 Performances
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If Owen moves on, Young might get the number 7, and Scholes might take 18 back.
This is only a good thing.
I hope we don't overuse him though. We do need to move on a bit and I don't think he'd have had the season he's had if he'd played from the start of the season. Need to pick and choose the games he plays in rather than just have him as first choice for every game that matters.
Delighted to have Scholes on board again, but it's a bit of a concern that we still have to rely so heavily on him.
Anyway, he looked much better this season than last, so I think it's clear that the 6 month break did him the world of good. Same thing happened when he was on the sidelines for a few months with that eye problem and then returned with arguably his best season in a United shirt (along with 02/03).
Do that every few years and we'll have him running our midfield until he's 45!
Anyway, he looked much better this season than last, so I think it's clear that the 6 month break did him the world of good. Same thing happened when he was on the sidelines for a few months with that eye problem and then returned with arguably his best season in a United shirt (along with 02/03).
Do that every few years and we'll have him running our midfield until he's 45!
I doubt very much he'll be going on tour.
Give him a few months off to recharge again.
Give him a few months off to recharge again.
Absolutely, even in the legue I'd start with Cleverley and Anderson again and see if they can recapture some form, Scholes can play the big games.
For as long as Scholes makes himself available to us, it's a good thing. This time around I really do get the feeling that it will be his last season. We should enjoy every moment of it but only as a bit part player.
I expect we're gonna buy and trust in younger midfielders from the start.
I expect we're gonna buy and trust in younger midfielders from the start.
I am going to be in a minority here , but I think we should be buying a replacement for him , yes he is still a very good player , I would rather see him has a coach to the younger players.
Like City? A big problem in that match was that Fergie believed - rightly - a midfield two of Carrick and Scholes would not cope and tried to work around that. We've got to get over that.
Why? If he is still able to play, then he is far more valuable by playing. It's not as if he isn't going to have the rest of his future to do other stuff like coaching, whereas we have a very limited number of games where he can still be of real quality. I'd rather see him as a coach to the younger players, when he can no longer play for us on the pitch instead.
That's exactly what should NOT happen. We should have midfielders who are at or around their peak years for the biggest games, midfielders who have the talent but can also cut it physically and for 90 minutes and twice a week if necessary.
Scholes should play when the main midfielders need a rest, against teams where his experience and sheer ability is enough. Not against City. Not against Real Madrid. Not against... you know what I mean.
Would have been awful to lose him. At the same time, when it comes to August, we really need to be talking about our new midfield and not how Scholes will be able to fill the gap for another year. Great to have him around when needed either way.
My point was more that Scholes should be rested at the start of next season, except for the big games, to shorten his season, so to speak.
If we buy someone who can come in and do a better job, or if Cleverley and Anderson are on a roll, fantastic, let them keep at it.
I suppose it's possible that Scholes will come back as more of a squad player and there to groom the hot young midfielder we bring in for a season. But we did have a fantastic haul of both goals and points in the league this year, we've only had 2 seasons in the league with more points per game and 4 with more goals per game, hard to fault our offense or the results overall. Painting Scholes as not up to snuff seems unfair.
If we buy someone who can come in and do a better job, or if Cleverley and Anderson are on a roll, fantastic, let them keep at it.
I suppose it's possible that Scholes will come back as more of a squad player and there to groom the hot young midfielder we bring in for a season. But we did have a fantastic haul of both goals and points in the league this year, we've only had 2 seasons in the league with more points per game and 4 with more goals per game, hard to fault our offense or the results overall. Painting Scholes as not up to snuff seems unfair.
Playing any central two in world football against City would have been insane.
I don't know about that. But when that middle two were also overran against Norwich and Spurs, you know you've got trouble. Yes, even though we won both games.
This is spot on, if we actually address midfield and use Scholes as a luxury then great, but it's a bad choice of he's used as the main answer at this point, because he isn't.
What you mean like the one we played against them in the second half of the Charity shield? I agree, madness!
But by the same rule we did not have enough defensive minded players or enough pace in the middle to play an effective 4-5-1 either. No point in picking a formation that doesn't suit your players, there is only ever going to be outcome in that situation and we saw it right there. Defeat without even a shot on target.
Might as well have gone 4-4-2 second half, at least we may have asked 1 or 2 questions of their defence. The way it stood we had no realistic chance of a comeback and so it proved.
Scholes is still the best, he's lost his legs for a few seasons but if we can surround him with runners, he still has a lot to offer. Fantastic news.
apotheosis, I still think it's better to start a match carefully and try to become more attacking if needed rather than the other way around. What if you start with an attacking formation, or at least a normal one, find out it doesn't work and go a goal down? Do you just stick with something that doesn't work, or to more defensively when you already need at least one goal? We did try to go to a more attacking team in the second half. It just didn't get us anywhere.
The problem with believing Fergie got it wrong at City, is that I'm not sure if, with our personnel, there was a 'right'.
The problem with believing Fergie got it wrong at City, is that I'm not sure if, with our personnel, there was a 'right'.
It has to be noted this is the poorest PL for a long time. Points tallies and goals scored are reflective of what we were facing. Arsenal were crap, so were Chelsea, and Liverpool, and Spurs were Spurs. The only 2 teams who looked to have noticably improved from the previous season were City and Newcastle. The vast majority of the PL teams this year were little more than Championship standard, which probably explains why all the teams who came up, stayed up fairly comfortably.
Scholes proved his quality in the PL, but against more imaginative, better organised and possession based European teams, his lack of pace and mobility was a major weakness for us, especially when paired with the hardly lightning Carrick. You need a pressing game to progress in Europe, if you have that and someone who can nick you a goal, you can do ok as Chelsea proved.
Without that you will be worn down, ran ragged and eventually beaten which pretty much sums up our entire Europa league campaign. Remember none of the teams we faced were exactly Elite standard clubs. But they can play, they know how to keep possession and have enough quality to take chances if they have enough of them.
It is defensively where our problems lie in midfield, Scholes for all his quality on the ball can do nothing to help us sort that out. Keeping Schole is fine imo, as long as we have others to cover the work he can no longer be expected do.
We may not have had the best team available to us with the injuries we had but we certainly had better choices then the one we put out. Going 433 is fine, but the players you pick have to be suited to it. Park in attacking midfield failed miserably. He hadn't played in ages but more then that in the games he has played in that role in recent times he's been awful. We could have stuck Rooney there who would also have worked hard and undoubtedly provided a better attacking threat. If he did want experience he could have put Giggs there in the middle, where as he showed on sunday he still has something to offer there. He could even have put Young there, again any of those players would have worked hard but also provided a much greater threat on the break.
Out wide, he chose Giggs, again this didn't make sense considering he hadn't featured and there were players, playing better and who are much more dangerous wingers and would have offered more in defence and attack.
We didn't have our best team available but we still had better options then the one he went for imo. You could argue that we went more attacking in the second half and didn't score but then City had their goal by that point and had brought on De Jong to tighten it up.
Im with you Amir, but for me after going a goal down, there was little value in continuing a formation employed to earn a draw. We had no attacking threat whatsoever in that line up. We might as well have gone 4-4-2 second half and had a go, instead of continuing trying to hold off City, while offering no attacking threat.
As with any gamble, the right of it is only determined by the end result. We are only offensively effective in a 4-4-2, so when we need a goal that is what we should play. Playing a formation that completely isolated our main striker and wingers and offered nothing through the middle was always going to deliver what it promised too. Nothing!
If Fergie wants to start employing different formations, which i believe he should do more often, then he should make sure we have the right type of players to allow us to still be effective. Going into the season with only one DM meant we were always going to be very limited by what systems we could play, it cost us first in Europe and then eventually in the league.
Just one more DM or holding player, would have made so much difference. We could then have still helped Carrick, whilst freeing Giggs to support Rooney, or we could have played what i feel is the formation best suited to what we have, a 4-2-3-1. This would have helped us massively in a lot of games this season, but again having only one DM put paid to that too.
Bottom line, we play 4-4-2 so often, not because it is the best formation for us, but because despite it's openess, it is still the only formation we can play that offers any serious goal threat, due to our lack of options in midfield.
I'd go with this, well, to an extent, because Valencia should've started and Nani should've been on the left. But we didn't have the midfield options to actually play 3 in midfield effectively, and playing 4-4-2 wasn't really an option either.
I'd definitely agree Giggs should not have started. We've got a great array with three quality wingers so we should have used two, especially when we knew there wouldn't be too much coming from the midfield in terms of creativity. But looking at the game, I'm not even sure that would have made much of a difference. Which brings us back to the old midfield debate. It's not good enough.
We probably played Rooney upfront because he's our best goal getter and we wanted to keep him close to goal. The idea was fine. The problem, again, was that we didn't have the team to support him.
If we had all our players available, we'd easy have the midfield players to form a good 4-5-1 or 4-3-3. But we didn't, not even close. Fletcher, Anderson, Cleverley - heck, those three themselves could form a good midfield trio. If we had Fletcher, we might have even gone with just him and Carrick in midfield. Certain circumstances brought us to a tough situation when we had to find a solution. We didn't manage to. What I hope is we do enough in the transfer market to make sure we have the options we need.
Scholes has plenty to give, he's a point of strength and also a point of weakness. Brilliant brain, body on the wane. We need to find the right games for him and he'll get plenty, he could even play in big games against the right teams and with the right formation, but just like agaisnt City, we could be losing something because of it. Just like when we tried to protect Keane's ageing legs in his last year or two.
We probably played Rooney upfront because he's our best goal getter and we wanted to keep him close to goal. The idea was fine. The problem, again, was that we didn't have the team to support him.
If we had all our players available, we'd easy have the midfield players to form a good 4-5-1 or 4-3-3. But we didn't, not even close. Fletcher, Anderson, Cleverley - heck, those three themselves could form a good midfield trio. If we had Fletcher, we might have even gone with just him and Carrick in midfield. Certain circumstances brought us to a tough situation when we had to find a solution. We didn't manage to. What I hope is we do enough in the transfer market to make sure we have the options we need.
Scholes has plenty to give, he's a point of strength and also a point of weakness. Brilliant brain, body on the wane. We need to find the right games for him and he'll get plenty, he could even play in big games against the right teams and with the right formation, but just like agaisnt City, we could be losing something because of it. Just like when we tried to protect Keane's ageing legs in his last year or two.
I know I get shit for this and I love Giggsy but its time he moved to the backroom. Scholesy pfff I dunno would he have the same impact after a pre season and a whole season? I did say before he should retire with Giggsy and theres something to be said about cutting the cord BUT his experience and ability to control the game would still be valuable if only his legs can keep up.
I want both Giggs and Scholes playing next season but I want our reliance on them to reduce. You can't want Scholes to retire. He's been playing too well for that. But I do hope we, while keeping them and using them, do move on a tad bit next season. Giggs should never have played against City but did because Fergie trusts him despite being in poor form. As was the case with Park. You shouldn't have to rely so greatly on a 39 year old in such big games even when he isn't in form. Same goes for scholes. If he's not in the best touch we need to not repent it so badly, or play him anyway.
Yep it's great to have them but we shouldn't have to rely on them, it should be a choice to use them in the games where they can have real impact. Against smaller teams who try and sit back, Scholes is still our best weapon because he'll continually stretch the pitch with his passing and the only way they can stop him is to push forward, leaving space behind. Another midfielder at their physical peak, who isn't a sick note and it'll solve the issue.
Charity (Community) Shield? Please...What you mean like the one we played against them in the second half of the Charity shield? I agree, madness!
For one thing, Yaya Toure was completely unfit for that game (to a ridiculous extent!) which was a large factor in our second half performance.
Great to have him back. Now lets just send him on holiday for the next 7-8 months. Then have him come back around Jan/Feb like this year.
I don't think the club has the bollocks to move them on like Milan and Juventus did recently with their old guards. Look at Neville for example, he retired a year late.
Scholes has been one of our best players since coming back.
Anyone noticed the "Barca" triangle between Rooney, Young and Scholesy we played against Sunderland 
Great to have him as an option, a very good one in fact. But please, no more him and Giggs in the same midfield together anymore
Great to have scholes and giggs about and involved but they're not good enough against the top clubs anymore. Lets put it this way if next season city started with a 38 & 39 year old against us, no matter how good they used to be, I would be bloody delighted.
Yes, but he had the benefit of 6 months rest. If he's going to be a major part of our midfield moving forward, we can't guarantee him that rest. Plus, we had the benefit of crashing out of all our cup competitions, so he had a weeks rest between games. What will we do if we're deep in several competitions and we're chasing a title? I'd rather bring in someone who can contribute to all of these, and if that means one/both of Scholes and Giggs leaving... but it won't happen, IMO.
Fair bit of chatter going around that he's about to be named in the England squad - and he's even odds on with some bookies...
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
A fair bit of chatter is going around that Downing will be named in the squad as well. At this moment I'll just wait and see because insanity reigns supreme.
Great news.
But we still need a better player for the starting XI.
But we still need a better player for the starting XI.
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