Watford are a long ball team, we are going to probably need O'Shea in the holding midfield position to win a few headers. I think you will see O'Shea and Carrick in the middle. With Carrick going forward.
I'm not saying it's an exact layer trace because it obviously isn't, but an issue with Carrick is that he's always had flank protection. Jenas is indeed no O'Shea defensively (did I just say that )but he's very much box-to-box and got back to help out a fair bit as well as Davids doing the same thing. It gave Carrick a lot of freedom he wouldn't have otherwise been afforded. I think if we want to optimise Carrick we have to either play a 4-3-3 or have him flanked by someone who will do a ton of donkey work so that he can have two eyes forward on those possible game winning passes. It's a bit of give and take. Lose some from the wing, gain loads from the middle plus the flank with Ronaldo on. Also, the RB on Fletcher's side is expected to overlap and flank, so width isn't actually lost.
Hope my stream works as well this time as for the charlton game! I don't have to work that day or anything! Will be having a couple brews in front of my monitor! Like it really matters but why not... ---------big dutchman------- brown--rio--silvestre--evra(!) ronaldo--fletcher--carrick--o'shea--park --------------saha-------------- although i wouldn't mind seeing a... ronaldo--fletcher--carrick--park --------rossi----------------- --------------saha---------- ...midfield and forward lineup just to see if it works.
---------big dutchman------- brown--rio--silvestre--evra(!) ----------O'pie------------- --fletcher-----carrick---- --ronaldo (park)----------rossi -----------saha (ole)-------------- I'm hesitant about playing Ronaldo because we don't want to burn out the lad. However, we still need match winners.. 3 points MUST be had. I'm seriously up for a 4-3-3 attempt, it'll be very interesting to see the effects of modelling a midfield after Milan.
No need for that because he's going to have a breather for the first CL game vs benfica. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/internationals/5281988.stm Neville out of England qualifiers
right, right. thanks for the correction. yeah, foster wont face us. Most likely it will be Richard Lee.
I don't know if this is the right thread to ask, but does anyone know if there will be live radio commentary of this game tomorrow? The "Official" Man. Utd. website had good commentary for the game Wednesday.
I believe that if you register you can listen to free commentary on the official website for every game this season.
I disagree with you DS. While Carrick has almost always had flank protection it wasn't as if he was ineffective in the several games Davids missed due to suspension. Carrick is not a great ball winner but he does a great job of picking up the lose ball and cleaning up after others almost like a low grade DM would. Jenas didn't always start next to Carrick either. There were numerous times when Carrick was paired with Taino who is an attacking mid. Even if we disregard those matches, Davids+Carrick+Jenas is in my mind about equal to Park+Carrick+O'Shea O'Shea is far more defensive than Jenas and will sit back far more allowing Carrick to do his thing and Park's work rate is better than that of Davids. He won't win as many balls as Davids, but the same is true of the Jenas/O'Shea comparison. I think that especially against some of the weaker teams we can get away with Carrick + Park + O'Shea and in some instances, Park, Carrick and Fletcher.
I'm not calling Carrick a lame, or saying he can't cope, I'm saying to get maximum output from him he needs freedom and that is afforded by the correct protection and worker bees. I want to see Carrick at 100% not 80% or so because we aren't using him right.
Ole couldnt last 90 minutes upfront, now you want him to play on the wings? Giving carrick absolutely no cover?
Well, I think the point that we're getting at is what exactly are you expecting from Carrick? He's not a Scholes type AM who prefers to spend his time around the box whose contribution comes largely in the form of goals. Carrick truely seems most comfortable around the center of the pitch distributing for the attack and playing a bit of defense as well. If this were a Lampard/Scholes type I could see the point of freeing him up, hell I could even see it with Gerrard, but Carrick isn't a scorer and does have a fair amount of defensive accumen actually coming up through West Ham's system as more a DM with Joe Cole more attacking minded. I think Carrick's preferred style of play would be with players who can create around him and as the link up between defense and attack, I certainly don't think he's a player who will challenge for the team lead in assists (Ronaldo) or goals from a midfielder (Scholes).
There are entire threads devoted to Carrick, my thoughts on him and his role are there, I've written some lenghty pieces on him in some of those as well.
the fact is, if we win all of our games from now untill the end of the season we are champions, no matter what Chelsea do, this is our we should approach it.
Neville is not to far behind Giggs, time for him to take a seat...Giggs still shows more than Neville...Dont know why United/ England fans love neville so much...he is average and looks like his age is starting to affect him....IMO
I really hope Jones and Rossi start, although it's highly unlikely. I think a 4-3-3 would be interesting, if Fergie decides to rest Giggs and give Jones and Rossi a start: ---------Van der Sar----------- Brown---Rio---Silvestre---Evra ------------O'Shea------------- -----Fletcher-------Jones------ ------------Ronaldo------------ -------Rossi-------Saha-------- SUBS: Kuszczak, Park, Giggs, Ole, Carrick Later on, would be nice to see Carrick coming on.
I think we'll see the same lineup from Wed., and that should hopefully be good enough to get the job done...I'll be up tomorrow morning and will post any links for the match I find, though I'm sure many of you on here will have beat me to it...
I just don't think Giggs will play 3 games in one week. Playing off of Saha means he doesn't have to do as much running but he's always had hammy issues in the past and I don't think burning him out early is a good idea. It's a marathon not a sprint.
You don't think Carrick will Start? He has to play close to full match sooner or later to get match fit. Watford would be the team to get match fit against I would think.
This year Fergie is treating it much more like a sprint than a marathon... Rounding into form and stringing wins together after Boxing Day hasn't been a problem lately; it's bad starts to the season which has killed Utd. With regards to Giggsy, he's in great form right now and doesn't have to do nearly the amount of running in the role he's been employed, as you mention. Utd can hopefully get out to a lead and sub him in the '60, and Wales only have one match over the international break, not til next Saturday. I can see Carrick starting, but I think SAF might leave the side unchanged. I certainly expect Carrick to figure at some point, and he has two matches with England to regain fitness. We shall see...
I think Fergie will be wary of rushing Carrick back too soon. He won't want to aggravate the injury and put him out for longer. O'Shea-Fletcher were competent in midfield against Charlton, so I think he'll start the game with them.