Alot of us have been scratching our heads about what is "wrong" with UTD, this season.
Results wise, we have been amazing, but the overall play has been lacking. I think we underestimate the transition we are going through from losing Scholes in the middle (he is as good as retired, this season).
I think Scholes' easing out of the first team has affected/changed our style, to the detriment of the wingers.
Scholes shifted the ball around so quickly, switched play so often, that the wingers had more time and more space to run at players and not get doubled up on.
How many times would we see the play on the left, then a quick, perfect ball from Scholes over to the right and find the likes of Valencia in acres of space.
Clevs and Carrick have done a good job in midfield... But it is safe to save neither have that ability to control a game.. and switch play, like Scholes, (upto last season).
There are, of course, other problems... A lack of form from the wingers, niggling injuries etc... But alot of our play and style, over the years, was dictated by Scholes, so we will clearly suffer as we transition to a new midfield and new tactics.
The Scholes factor
posted on 2/4/13
Basically we need a good Scholes replacement
posted on 2/4/13
We should have bought sneijder in january. He went to galatasary for 12mil!
posted on 2/4/13
Basically we need a good Scholes replacement
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Not going to happen. Paul Scholes is an extremely rare breed of player.
We need to find a way of getting the best out of the team without him.
posted on 2/4/13
What we need is a striker who can finish off crosses!
RVP is great but heading is not his game and he is more of a 'I want the ball on the floor' kind of player.
All season, despite the supposed awful form of certain players i've seen some great crosses go into the box and players seemingly unable to get on the end of those crosses.
Ashley Young in particular gets a bad rap on here but i've seen so many great crosses from him get unconverted.
posted on 2/4/13
We need to play welbeck as a cf more often and not stick him out on the wing where he's useless
posted on 2/4/13
i've seen some great crosses go into the box
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I've seen far more poor crosses.... But more to the point of this article... I have seen our wingers unable even to put a cross in due to lack of space and being doubled up on (as well as being out of ideas, once that happens).
posted on 2/4/13
On another note, how many corners did we have yesterday where we barely beat the first man. Took me back to last season! Nani just should not be taking corners or free kicks.
posted on 2/4/13
Here's an interesting stat -
On Saturday Ashley Young created 8 chances against Sunderland but none were taken.
I agree with the gist of this article but I do also think that our strikers need to be more aggressive with the decent balls that do come into the box.
posted on 2/4/13
Scholes is a one off, but that's not to say we should accept mediocrity in his place, or that we shouldn't look for someone to replace him.
Carrick is an excellent sweeping midfielder. He has a great range of passing and should be voted our player of the season in my opinion. But he needs someone with guile and inteligence to play alongside. We need that something special that Scholes once gave us that connected our midfield to our attack. Clevs isn't the answer, he's a good player that might be able to do a Carrick type of job for us in the future.
posted on 2/4/13
Robb – would be interesting to see what they defined as chances
I can only think of the one at the end that was clear cut and even that one he actually made it harder for RVP, if he had played it earlier he could have taken a touch and wouldn’t have had to take it first time with the keeper closing him down.