What happened to Tom Cleverley? | Retires due to injury

LawCharltonBest

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Was never going to be Paul Scholes the second. But he began to establish himself as a starter in a title challenging Manchester United team up until Sir Alex Ferguson left.

I know he’s back at Watford, and he’s 30 now, about his prime years, but I never hear anything about him. Does he play? Is he good for them?
 
His brand was such a runaway success he decided he didn't need to play football anymore.
 
Made 13 appearances in the Premier League last season. I don't know if he had injuries that season but I didn't hear much about him either.
 
He's on loan to the Barbados Squirrels
 
LawCharltonBest said:
Was never going to be Paul Scholes the second. But he began to establish himself as a starter in a title challenging Manchester United team up until Sir Alex Ferguson left.

I know he’s back at Watford, and he’s 30 now, about his prime years, but I never hear anything about him. Does he play? Is he good for them?
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I’ve seen him play and start a few games for them last season, iirc, though I don’t think he was first choice - often rotating in and out of the team with Capoue or another attacking mid.
 
He was never good enough for us. People look back on that month at the start of 2011 where he and Anderson played in a team that was wiping the floor with everyone and looked half decent for once, but he was always a bit shite. One of those midfielders who was pretty much average at absolutely everything and excelled at nothing. A classic example, along with Welbeck, of an academy getting more time than they deserved.
 
Massive Spanner said:
He was never good enough for us. People look back on that month at the start of 2011 where he and Anderson played in a team that was wiping the floor with everyone and looked half decent for once, but he was always a bit shite. One of those midfielders who was pretty much average at absolutely everything and excelled at nothing. A classic example, along with Welbeck, of an academy getting more time than they deserved.
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JLingz is another candidate
 
He was the old Harry Winks. Gets the ball and passes it as soon as possible to the nearest person to him which some people thought was an attribute at the time because Xavi did it when Barcelona were 5-0 up every week.
 
He was just never that good. Another 1 of those players that was made to look good by playing with others above his class.

Injuries obviously didn't help either, but let's be honest what was he actually good at? Average at everything apart from sideways passing.

Let's not forget he started the brand "TC23" also, which was frankly bonkers.
 
Massive Spanner said:
He was never good enough for us. People look back on that month at the start of 2011 where he and Anderson played in a team that was wiping the floor with everyone and looked half decent for once, but he was always a bit shite. One of those midfielders who was pretty much average at absolutely everything and excelled at nothing. A classic example, along with Welbeck, of an academy getting more time than they deserved.
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Sounds like Andreas Pereira
 
Decent technically but he was always a bit of a nothing player.
 
Bwuk said:
Decent technically but he was always a bit of a nothing player.
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I thought he was poor technically. Always to square up on his instep just to receive a pass, which is a huge problem for a central midfielder.
 
Was never good enough but if fergie was still here so too would he would be and would likely be in the England squad!
 
It was the SAF factor.

That season when we were smashing everyone up until we played City, before he got injured, I'd say SAF had him believing he was a considerably better player than he was. He was just performing way above his level for a small sample size of games. His consistent form basis was less than the likes of Fletcher or Butt for example, so he was never going to get anywhere near the higher quality midfielders we've had for a decent amount of years like Keane, Carrick, Scholes etc. He was probably considerably worse than Fletcher and Butt really. He's comparable to Gibson and Anderson who could do good things in short bursts but never for a long run of games or even be just decent for months at a time etc.

He just wasn't that good in the first place, basically.
 
Became an absolute coward after his injury. He sees himself as a "spanish" type player and seems to have grown up thinking that what that means is to just keep the ball moving with backwards and sideways passes in order to have a high pass completion rate.
 
Havak said:
It was the SAF factor.

That season when we were smashing everyone up until we played City, before he got injured, I'd say SAF had him believing he was a considerably better player than he was. He was just performing way above his level for a small sample size of games. His consistent form basis was less than the likes of Fletcher or Butt for example, so he was never going to get anywhere near the higher quality midfielders we've had for a decent amount of years like Keane, Carrick, Scholes etc. He was probably considerably worse than Fletcher and Butt really. He's comparable to Gibson and Anderson who could do good things in short bursts but never for a long run of games or even be just decent for months at a time etc.

He just wasn't that good in the first place, basically.
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Genuine question: SAF chose him in the lineup against Mourinho's Real Madrid. So he can't be that average, right? He got a starting spot against a Europe's elite, and Real had no answer for us until Nani's red card.
Is he better than the likes of Schneiderlin and Pereira, or Park Ji Sung?
 
minh_loc_xoay said:
Genuine question: SAF chose him in the lineup against Mourinho's Real Madrid. So he can't be that average, right? He got a starting spot against a Europe's elite, and Real had no answer for us until Nani's red card.
Is he better than the likes of Schneiderlin and Pereira, or Park Ji Sung?
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Gibson played against Bayern that time we bet them 3-2.
 
he was never that good, he just happened to play in a much better team than now.

if he was playing for us now he would be as rubbish as all our other midfielders.

there's as good a chance that McTom will have a Cleverley career trajectory than anything else.
 
He became a bit of a joke towards the end, he kept gesticulating to teammates that he was available for the pass but as soon as he got the ball he rolled it sideways and asked for it back again. Not sure if it was a lack of self-belief or if he'd just stopped progressing as a player, but at that point he was pretty much meaningless to have on the pitch.
 
minh_loc_xoay said:
Genuine question: SAF chose him in the lineup against Mourinho's Real Madrid. So he can't be that average, right? He got a starting spot against a Europe's elite, and Real had no answer for us until Nani's red card.
Is he better than the likes of Schneiderlin and Pereira, or Park Ji Sung?
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I think it's easier to play when you're playing in a team that is playing exceptionally well at the time and you're oozing with confidence. I think this is what happened with Cleverley personally. If we hit a bad patch, he wouldn't be the player to spur us on or whatever - he'd be the player removed from the starting line-up. We've seen McTominay and Fred put in amazing efforts against PSG, but I'm not sure if that is their usual level or just the odd game where they performance way above.

I wouldn't compare him to Ji-Sung Park as I see them as playing completely different positions, but if you must then he is nowhere near the level of Park as an overall footballer.

Schneiderlin and Pereira, he was was good as them at his peak at least, probably better than Pereira from what I've seen of him so far. These players came into pretty bad United squads though and weren't/aren't good enough to up our level.
 
He was never that good. Just kept passing it sideways to the first guy he saw. Like Winks is now for Spurs.
 
Vidyoyo said:
All has been said but how bloody brilliant was SAF at elevating the level of thoroughly average players.
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Yep.
And having players fighting above their level is the sign of a fantastic manager. It sucks that he had to retire.

The best part of it all was that under SAF, if you joined MUFC, you knew you were going to win trophies. So joining MUFC just to get a big pay day was not the primary motivation of players. Furthermore, great players, when sold, really begrudged the fact that they were being moved on. For example, RvN and Beckham - 2 of the greatest players of their generation - really did not want to leave MUFC.

In 2019, we have to make do with players like Lingard, Rashford, Scott McT and so on, who are not the best players of their generation. Not only that, but we are hanging onto them for dear life, by offering them wages that no other club would even think of offering.

The biggest thing though, is that we are becoming the next Liverpool. Read my text above and you can see me reminiscing about past glories. This is what LFC supporters must've felt like, after their fall from grace.
 
To be fair to TC he was initially an attacking midfielder who prior to joining up with the first team destroyed the Championship with 10+ goals before being the regular stand out player at a relegated Wigan EPL team. He nose dived and quite rightly was sent packing. We do seem to historically have this obsession with playing youth prospects in wrong positions which can’t have helped his progression.
 
He was decent enough until the injury, then he became a coward and stopped trying to do anything other pass it sideways. He got himself a cracking mrs and seemed to stop caring.
 
I think people are being a little harsh, as our fanbase seem to love to be.
As time goes on all players seem to become worse than they actually were - the best example being people deciding that team that won the league in Fergie's last season were all of a sudden all rubbish, and 7th was almost a decent effort!

For a period in time he was seen as a real prospect, a quick pass and move player, a bit unusual for English midfielders at that time.

Seemed to burn out after Kevin Davies smashed him, and was never anywhere near the same afterwards.
 
Was surrounded by world class players and serial winners. In today's squad he would probably be playing most weeks and being exposed.

For example, playing in a squad with peak VDS, Rio, Vidic, Evra, Carrick, Scholes, Rooney around him, he looked a better player.

Put McTominay in that 07-09 team and he would look twice as good as he already does.
 
He was always an absolute average footballer who got lucky in a time the old man was neglecting the midfield. Anderson was the better player despite the clown he was and it tells the most of the story really. Lingard would follow this same trajectory as soon as the club open their eyes and ship him to a club his level.
 
I sent him a Facebook message when he was on loan at Watford asking him how his loan is going in 2009. I was around 13 at the time.

He responded saying “good cheers mate.”
 
Created his own brand, set up a website to promote it. Being in the first team because We had no one better.

Sounds familiar?
 
Sandikan said:
I think people are being a little harsh, as our fanbase seem to love to be.
As time goes on all players seem to become worse than they actually were - the best example being people deciding that team that won the league in Fergie's last season were all of a sudden all rubbish, and 7th was almost a decent effort!

For a period in time he was seen as a real prospect, a quick pass and move player, a bit unusual for English midfielders at that time.

Seemed to burn out after Kevin Davies smashed him, and was never anywhere near the same afterwards.
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Agreed, there's a lot of revisionism going on here and people are definitely being harsh. It was the injury that did for him. He seemed to be on the way to being a very good player up until then.
 
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