Not the president of Kramerica Enterprises....
This time the chalkboards do tell the tale.
Fulham played a 4-2-4 defense and engaged Manchester United’s “back-six” with their “front-six.” It was a good strategy despite the ending scoreline of 5-0. Sir Alex Ferguson recognized it as such, pulling off a woozy Phil Jones (from an early Clint Dempsey elbow) and adding in another attacker in Ashley Young to provide central linking while moving Antonio Valencia to rightback.
(Once Fulham fell behind early on some uncharacteristically shoddy backline defending, they had to press….then…it was curtains.)
Manchester United played with double pivots of Ryan Giggs and Michael Carrick. While Giggs was given license to go forward, this time the passing arrays tell the story. Who is going to unlock defenses once Giggs is gone?
Mr. Carrick’s rather neutral passing chart…
Mr. Neutral....
——
Mr. Giggs’s …unlocking
——
Mr. Progressive is...Mr. Giggs?
Supporting material: On Michael Carrick
Subscribe to TSG via RSS
Posted by Bode on 2011/12/22 at 7:30 AM
They’ll just buy another 20-30 million pound player, no?
Posted by EFG on 2011/12/22 at 8:00 AM
Wesley Sneijder almost makes too much sense to fill the void. I still think it’s too early to count on someone like Cleverly.
Posted by matthewsf on 2011/12/22 at 11:30 AM
I agree — doesn’t that have to get done!
Posted by Alex on 2011/12/22 at 10:58 AM
Well they’re obviously going to buy another winger. For sure. Hopefully with the skillsets of Bebe haha.
Posted by Kevin S on 2011/12/22 at 11:11 AM
What happens when Ryan Giggs retires?
I don’t know… what happens when the world ends?
Posted by Kevin S on 2011/12/22 at 11:18 AM
Seriously though one player I’ve always thought United should pursue (without taking into account price) is Schweinsteiger. Other than him, I guess they should continue to chase Sneijder.
Posted by Say What! on 2011/12/22 at 3:45 PM
Grab Sneijder or Ozil
Posted by Antonio H. on 2011/12/23 at 3:03 PM
United have been keeping a closer eye on Nicolas Gaitan of Benfica than Sneijder. He’s more of a CAM than a DLP i think.