Pleased somebody had the time to rubbish that thread. Its a great point about Juve's 3 centre halves taking the defensive responsibility off Pirlo (awesome player btw). Equally the Busquets point.
In 2012 not one of those players would have improved Man Utd in Carrick place. Not one.
There is a debate to be had about who is better etc but as many are quite different its a difficult argument and comes down to preference.
Carrick is outstanding at getting the best out of others.
Im sure if you asked Paul Pogba to pick one player to start for United......his first response would be Micheal Carrick
I think we all know that in terms of defensive abilities, Carrick is much better than Pirlo, and IMO he is slightly better than Busqets and Xabi too, many people criticize Carrick because he often wilts under pressure, while Pirlo and Busqets keep taking responsibilities under pressure or man marking, the same could not be said about Carrick
Last game for example, whenever Firmino or Lallana come close to him he shirks and play a bad passes, while Busqets or Pirlo would probably tried to dribbled past the opponent because their superior footwork skill, and that did not happen once or twice but many times, not saying that Carrick
always play bad under pressure, but in many occasion he does, and also it's not like Pirlo or Busqets
always capable of handling the pressure well, but most of the time they does