Midfield General

So on the day Sir Alex is given the honor of having the North Stand named after him in  recognition of his 25 years service at Old Trafford, I couldn't help thinking that a better gift might have been a couple of new central midfielders. 


The performance against Sunderland was a slight improvement but I still came away feeling pretty disappointed at what I'd seen.  United are playing with a real lack of confidence, there's no creativity, we just don't make as many chances as we used to...  its not enjoyable to watch.


Personally I think the problem is in midfield, that's certainly the long term problem anyway - I know that United will start playing better over the next few weeks, they will start winning games more convincingly and that certain player will get there confidence back but we definitely need to invest in our midfield.


To be honest we probably need a couple of midfielders - I think we need a specialist defensive midfielder and a creative playmaker, a real 'Midfield General' that can dictate play. I remember when we bought Roy Keane, we already had Paul Ince, Nicky Butt and Bryan Robson at the club - thats four world class defensive/all round midfield players, not to mention the creative midfield players that we also had at the club.


The current squad doesn't have that strength in midfield, there are only really two that i'm happy with... I like Darren Fletcher, I think hes good player, he covers a lot of ground, works hard, can tackle and pass.  Tom Cleverley looks the part when he is fit, I think he could become a special player for us but he's still quite young.  I've given up on Anderson - he's just so inconsistent, there might be a great player hiding in there somewhere but how long do we have to wait.  He's been here a long time now and he should be playing at consistent level but I think he's been shocking recently.  The other so called 'Midfielder' is Carrick - I don't know what's gone wrong with him, but I think he's awful - there's no passion, no running, he can't tackle, he gives the ball away all the time, he isn't a goal threat - I don't rate him!


Hopefully, fingers crossed we'll do a bit of shopping in January and bring in a couple of players.