The midfield conundrum at Old Trafford.

So after a week of astonishing events, where we learned Wayne Rooney, a player who has been a huge fan favourite at the club since his arrival wanted to leave the club, we finally saw the player nicknamed “The White Pele” put pen to paper on a new 5 year contract. But this was only after an un-necessary public war broke out with the papers first breaking the story of Rooney not wanting to sign a new contract, requiring the intervention of Sir Alex Ferguson who over the next few days would go on to deliver a PR master class generating outrage from the football world at what the modern footballer had become and even sympathy in some quarters. Ferguson delivered a bizarre “cow” analogy that could probably rival Cantona’s famous “Seaguls and trawlers” quote, but ultimately he also reminded the world just what Manchester United stands for in terms of its philosophy and commitment to developing young footballers both from home and abroad. There were points when you would have thought you were listening to Sir Matt Busby speak. For the Rooney camp, the end probably justified the means and the view from a few United fans is that United should not have caved in especially after what many considered extremely offensive comments about the club’s “lack of ambition”. It is difficult to know the future and only time will tell whether this is a short-term measure to buy United some time as Ferguson searches for a replacement whilst also ensuring United a big transfer fee should they sell in the future. The rumours till now are that Rooney has doubled his wages to a staggering 160-180k a week more than shattering United’s wage structure and leads me to question under the current Glazer regime whether we can afford a single player earning so much.

My views on the whole Rooney saga have been well documented on the forum, and I don’t wish to get into them yet again. I’m glad that the saga is over and we can get back to the football as well as the task of attempting to make the team strong enough to challenge and win, both domestically and in Europe.

Of major concern to United fans presently is the midfield and just how to solve a problem which over the last 20 or so years never really existed at United. For United just about as long as I can remember pretty much have always had one of the strongest midfields in the league. Our current first team options in central midfield include 3 homegrown players if you include Ryan Giggs’ transformation from a wide player, with the other two being Darren Fletcher and Paul Scholes. The rest of our options are Michael Carrick, Anderson and the never available Owen Hargreaves.

There are 3-4 pairs here if you analyse the options, in the sense that we have 2 harriers or ball winners in Owen Hargreaves and Darren Fletcher, 2 deep lying playmakers and dictating midfielders in Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes and two advanced playmakers in Anderson and Giggs who attempt to use their dribbling qualities through the centre to devastating effect. However you could also make a case for there being two box to box midfielders depending on our system, and these 2 are Fletcher and Anderson.

It is perhaps a bit simplistic to say in the case of Fletcher and Hargreaves their role is simply to win back the ball and distribute it because Ferguson has in the past himself talked of his displeasure in employing a DM in the Makelele mould stating Man Utd should not need a 3rd centreback. Nevertheless Fletcher remains until now our best option at winning the ball back by pressuring the opposition due to Hargreaves continuing absence. Anderson has been tried in a 4-4-2 countless times as a box to box midfielder, but his eagerness to pressure does not really make him reliable and effective, and I’m of the opinion the extra defensive responsibility is not helping him fulfil his potential, I will go into the specifics of this later on.

Because of Fletcher being the only one truly reliable at consistently pressuring, Ferguson has relied on Michael Carrick’s positioning qualities to give us another defensive option in midfield. But Carrick has been criticised by United fans because of his weak mental qualities, lack of aggressiveness and overrated passing. There are now rumours he could soon be on the way out in the summer. As much as I am not the biggest Carrick fan and feel we need a better midfielder to dictate play once Scholes retires, I do feel defensively he is a decent option because his positioning can be extremely intelligent. But there is no doubt another player to replace Hargreaves or, Hargreaves eventually returning would add so much to our options. In a big game, these types of players are so crucial.

My opinion is that if United are indeed looking at strengthening this area of the pitch there are certain criteria Ferguson looks for before committing the funds to an investment. One of these is “How well does the player fit into the systems I employ?” By this I mean can the player play in a 4-4-2 and a 4-3-3 without his performances dropping off too much? It’s an important question because if we look at the number of times United employ either formation throughout a season, it’s around 70%-30% in 4-4-2’s favour. This is often the part many fans don’t get when they cry for a no.10 to be signed like a Rafael Van der Vaart or a Gourcuff and it doesn’t happen.

The truth is Man Utd rarely signs “no.10’s”, there is nothing this type of player will really do too differently to what Dimitar Berbatov already does, and as we all know, we’re just not going to bench a player bought for so much. This type of player is extremely useful in Europe to provide support to a lone frontman but that’s about it, and unless he can play wide or central in a 4-4-2 to a high standard, it is a pointless purchase. By wide, I am talking of how Modric and Ozil have been employed in the past, drifting inwards, and also where Anderson has been tried on a few occasions. This was ofcourse done to also get the most out of Patrice Evra bombing on.

The second thing which I believe Ferguson has valued in his 24 years, is maintaining a British spine throughout the team. If you look at all his great teams of the past, they have largely consisted of a British spine. In central defence, central midfield and attack we have had at least one British player, this is most evident in central midfield with names like Robson, Ince, Keane, Butt, Scholes, Carrick, Fletcher, Hargreaves, even Alan Smith and Phil Neville at time. Ofcourse there have been a few experiments along the way such as Seba Veron, Kleberson, Djemba Djemba and now Anderson, but these have largely been exceptions. Even if you look at it now, Anderson is the only non-British midfielder who plays for us in central midfield.

With these two in mind and having followed the rumours closely, it is little surprise to me we tried to sign Aaron Ramsey from Cardiff only to be trumped by Arsenal and that we have closely tracked Jack Rodwell for a long time. The latest one now is Jordan Henderson. With the new rules for registering players in the Premier league, this will probably increase even more.

The other two midfielders which we have been heavily linked with are Sotiris Ninis and Steven Defour, if I’m honest and from the little I’ve seen the latter is more likely to happen simply because he will fit like a glove. Ninis is a more difficult project, and it’s harder to see him making it at United even if he does look to be gifted. Who knows though, we may yet move for a player who was never on the fans or the media’s radar like Javier Hernandez, time will tell, but I for one am extremely interested to see how Ferguson will look to solve this particular conundrum.

Scholesy18

Clocks ticks down for Fergie??

Is Fergies luck running out??

Now before I start, I am not calling for Alex Fergusons head, nor am I saying I am not grateful for everything he has done to make United into what we are right now. But saying that, no-one is immune to criticism or beyond reproach.

No United fan can be happy with the start to this season, yes we lie in 3rd (at the time of writing this), and yes we are unbeaten in all competitions, but 3 league wins out of 7 (all at home) is not the start many of us envisaged. So what’s happening?

Most people are pointing to the poor form of Wayne Rooney, but surely we are not that reliant on one player?

The brutal truth is that yes we are.

Cast your mind back 4 years, to the end of the 2005/06 season. It had been our third successive season without winning the premiership, not that long for your average club, but for United fans it seemed like an age. The emergence of Chelsea under Mourinho and the massive amounts of cash being splashed about was a major cause for concern amongst the United faithful. There were even murmurings at the time that Fergie had ‘lost it’. The signings of Eric Djemba Djemba and Kleberson were huge flops, Scholes, Giggs and Neville were not getting any younger, and Ferguson had fallen out with top marksman Ruud Van Nistelrooy who was sold.

United fans had to be content with the odd domestic cup win and a special young player who gave the fans hope for the future, Cristiano Ronaldo.

The following season all was forgotten though, Ronaldo fulfilled his promise and along with Wayne Rooney fired United to their first title in 3 years. But looking back at the statistics, it is quite scary how much we relied on those two individuals. Ronaldo scored 17 goals and had 13 assists, whilst Rooney scored 14 and has 11 assists. Meaning those 2 players alone had a hand in 55 of Uniteds 83 league goals that season. A season which turned out to be a very weak one on the whole. It was a 2 horse race between United and Chelsea all along, the 3^rd place team (Liverpool) finished 21 points behind United, and lost more than a quarter of their league games that season. With Chelsea concentrating on the Champions League and Fergie desperate to win the premiership back, United most certainly stole a march on them and deservedly won the league. But take Ronaldo away, I suspect a different outcome.

The following season was much tighter, with only 4 points separating winners United, and 3^rd place Arsenal. United reliance on Ronaldo and Rooney was helped with the arrival of Carlos Tevez from West Ham. Rooney was inured for a long period at the start of the season. But this was where Ronaldo took centre stage. He scored 31 league goals, 7 more than anyone else, and banged in 42 in all competitions in a season which saw United rely on their defence (along with Ronaldo) and win the Champions League. In their Semi final against Barcelona, in the 1^st leg they played a style some refer to as ‘anti football’. Yet but for a missed penalty by Ronaldo they would have won in the Camp Nou. They beat Barca 1-0 in the home leg to face Chelsea in the final which they won on penalties after a 1-1 draw (another Ronaldo goal). Their style in Europe was a far cry from the 1999 success in which we played a brand of football which lit up Europe. But yet again, take Ronaldo out of this team and I doubt it would have won any trophy at all.

The most recent league win took United to 3 titles in a row, and was perhaps the weakest league overall of all 3 titles. Chelsea were unsettled as Scolari was hired as their new boss, but was sacked before Christmas, by then the title has already gone, Uniteds main challengers were Liverpool who faded away and United cruised to a 90 point total, whilst only 4 ahead of Liverpool it was wrapped up fairly easily with a bore draw against Arsenal at Old Trafford. Yet again though it was Ronaldo who did the damage, scoring 26 goals in all competitions. He destroyed Inter, Porto and Arsenal en route to the final of the Champions League where United were totally outclassed by Barcelona.

Last season with Ronaldo gone the big question was how United would fare without him. Wayne Rooney stepped up and basically singlehandedly took United to within a point of eventual champions Chelsea. Rooney scored 26 league goals but it was not enough, had he not got injured in March, who knows. United crashed out of the Champions League at the quarter final stage to eventual runners up Bayern Munich and lost Rooney to injury for the rest of the season.

So to sum up, in each of the past four seasons, United have been over reliant on first Ronaldo, and then Rooney. Rooneys poor form at the start of this season has raised serious question marks about this United team. Giggs and Scholes are still appearing frequently in the first team even now. And with Rooney out of it, who is left to step up and carry United to trophies? Fletcher? Nani? Anderson or Berbatov?

I suspect this could be the start of decline for Ferguson, and United.

Fowksee