Wasn't the case when we won our 20th league title. He played as much as any other player and was almost unanimously rated as one of our two standout players that season (him and Van Persie)
[Poll] Who was your midfielder of the season?
- Thread starter Niall
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
when he pretty much was a one-man midfield, that's exactly what I mean by the latter half of my statement
But neither did Herrera who only started 19 league matches. If you are discounting Carrick for not playing enough you should also discount Herrera.
This. You are absolutely right in everything you say.
To be fair over 20% less minutes is quite a margin, particularly when the person you're comparing him against would, in a lot of peoples' minds, only just qualify as playing enough to win the fictitious award. If a key player targets playing 3000 minutes in a PL season (32 full 94 min games), Carrick has played less than 50%
I'm particularly surprised that Mata has only 4% of the vote, worse than Young & Fellaini. He must have contributed to the most amount of goals from midfield and was unplayable and won the game for us in our most important game of the season. Likewise Blind seems to have been crucified for his poor end to the season, despite a great start.
Not everyone is on the Herrera love train'Agree with me or you're wrong'
I voted Mata. Herrera is a caf favourite at the moment so this was always going to be a comfortable win for him. Nothing wrong with that i guess but i don't really agree with it.
I can understand voting for Herrera, he came good when we really needed to put in a few great performances. Likewise I can understand justifying a vote for Carrick as per game he played he was our most important midfielder. Naturally Mata as well. I just can't understand the votes for Fellaini and Young, although I suppose the fact that they were so greatly improved would be a big factor (even though it was from an awfully low base).
I'd have Mata->Herrera->Carrick->Blind->Fellaini->Young->Di Maria->Rooney->Januzaj
Mata was slightly more productive than Fellaini in terms of creating and scoring goals. Fellaini signifcantly more productive with the defensive aspects of the midfield role.
I can understand Mata being rated as having a better season because he's more aesthetic to watch (and because people are generally reluctant to acknowledge Fellaini's contribution) but there's really not much between them in terms of how effective they made our midfield this season.
Stats.
Mata had a very inconsistent season, so did Fellani, not much between the two tbh.
I wouldn't read anything into the size of the majority. You'd probably need to give some points for peoples 2nd best midfielder and 3rd best before it starts telling you anything imo.
For me it was between carrick and hererra because i think when they played our midfield looked far more functional.
The attacking players were a bit interchangable for me, where they all did pretty well (or were playing as a full back for most of the season).
Carrick just didn't play that many games, so i voted hererra.
And i think hererra was as important to our midfield play as carrick. We still looked really sluggish and disjointed around christmas when rooney, mata and fellaini were filling the 2 other midfield positions.
Your stats are manipulated as they are "per 90 mins". We're talking about overall contribution. I'm terms of actual attacking contribution Mata was quite far ahead - over double.
"manipulated"
I always do per 90 as otherwise it might give a misleading impression that player A has been performing better than player B when the only difference might be him playing a few more games.
In this instance, all the trends I pointed out are consistent whether it's per 90 or overall.
Mata has more than double the goals+assists. That's a huge difference not "slightly more"."manipulated"
I always do per 90 as otherwise it might give a misleading impression that player A has been performing better than player B when the only difference might be him playing a few more games.
In this instance, all the trends I pointed out are consistent whether it's per 90 or overall.
And Fellaini has 10 times as many blocks/clearances and over twice as many tackles but I already alluded to that in my original post.
Not to mention that "more than double" isn't as impressive as it sounds when you're talking about a relatively small total overall.
Anyway, peopl can read those stats and make their own conclusions. There's nothing "manipulated" or misleading about any of them. I'm not even arguing that Fellaini had a better season, just that the gulf between them was nowhere near as big as you first implied.
But noone is arguing Mata was defensively fantastic. You were arguing there was hardly any difference between Mata and Fellaini's attacking contribution, which is wrong.
Fellaini's attacking contribution is similar to Smalling, not Mata attacking wise.
fecking hell. I used the words I used to differentiate between twice as many vs ten times as many. In terms of a whole season, scoring three goals more is not that big a difference, hence "slightly". In terms of defensive stats the difference is much more dramatic.
This is getting tedious though. The stats are there. People can draw their own conclusions.
You dont have to convince me about Carrick's importance but the point about not playing enough stands.
Herrera has 400+ more minutes than Carrick, thats a significant difference - it puts him in our First XI for minutes played whereas Carrick is at 14.
Im not surprised about Herrera winning the vote - especially since form towards the end of the season is always remembered more than the start in these kinds of things. Youg also benefits from that as he was strong at the end of the year - I actually think that both Fellaini and Mata were on par with him for the season and deserve more recognition.
Has to be Carrick. I doubt people would be saying Herrera were it not his first season.
I really like Carrick and have always appreciated him than majority of fans I argued with, but some people(not majority considering the results aren't in his favour) are definitely going overboard with praise for him this season. Yes, he was important to us this season, but this was probably one of his worst seasons for us in last 5 or 6 years, IMO. The one with Moyes was probably the only one where he was worse. People are making it sound like he didn't have bad game this season.
And again, this is coming from someone who thinks Carrick is our best player, and arguably was that for the last 5 or 6 years.
And again, this is coming from someone who thinks Carrick is our best player, and arguably was that for the last 5 or 6 years.
the culprit should be a 62-year-old Dutchman with all the praise and a near-total collapse of the system without him
Fair point.
I voted first and read the thread afterwards so I had no idea how the vote was turning out. I thought our best midfielder was Carrick, if only for the fact that we were a weaker team when he didn't play.
However I voted for Herrera because it asked for my midfielder of the season. I voted for him because of the ups and downs and then ups he had and how hard he worked to be a LvG player. I voted for him because he got better as the season went on, and because we were a better team to watch when he played. I'd like to say I voted for him because he's the future of the team, but I've got no idea what to expect from LvG or from our transfer activity.
However I voted for Herrera because it asked for my midfielder of the season. I voted for him because of the ups and downs and then ups he had and how hard he worked to be a LvG player. I voted for him because he got better as the season went on, and because we were a better team to watch when he played. I'd like to say I voted for him because he's the future of the team, but I've got no idea what to expect from LvG or from our transfer activity.
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Carrick a big diff in the win percentage with him in and out of the team