Midfield Maestros

There have been great players to have played the beautiful game but that does not stop me from writing an article on one of the most impressive midfield paring in the world. It is Carrick and fletcher of Manchester united.

Little did people realise the importance of paul scholes when he was at the peak. he was the unsung hero of the glorious united side, relentlessly he protected his strikers and also kept the opposition midfield in check. Recently i learnt a term called blind side, this is a rugby term which is used for a defender to protect the star player. Well scholes did exactly that and a great deal more than that. It may be seen as a very negative kind of football where a player solely takes care of breaking up the play. However, it is efficient and gets the job done, in football nothing matters more does it. Once the ronadlo era came he hogged all the limelight available and unavailable. Even when ronaldo was at the peak there were two players in the midfield protecting the entire Man United squad from being threatened of possession. These two midfielder did not make the scoring charts often but you could find them when the team was deadlocked and goalless. Yes i am still talking about the dirty men of united, the successors of paul scholes. No wonder united are able to keep up the silverware haul. I would disagree to many managers who claim that these two midfielder just break up the play and tackle with malicious intent. If reviewed most of the tackles made by Carrick and fletcher would be significantly brilliant given the choice they have to make in the split second. Many reviwers had placidly written saying United were over reliant on cristiano ronaldo and they were going to suffer, as long as people like carrick, fletcher, viera and scholes are on a team all players are safe on a football field.

It is no surprise that the two of them end up sent off for most of the matches. As some video footages show they make the challenge by the book and are composed and serene for most of the match time. As i mentioned earlier, everyone have thier bad days and so do they. Unlike their tutor scholes who randomly lunges at the opponents and i sent off for careless tackles these guys are sent off most of the time due to an error in judgementby the refree or due to the pressure of the players and the situation. The other very positive point for united is that these two midfielders are pretty loyal to united and may be a red devil for a long while...maybe even for the rest of their carrier.

Midfield generals are very hard to come by, they are usually expected to be tall and quite built up to take some damage themselves. The best examples being makalele, Patrick Vieira and gilberto Silva. Well it is a surprise that being smaller in stature that Carrick and fletcher can do the same. The other important point to note about the duo is that they are extremely versatile. When vidic,Ferdinand, brown and Neville were injured these two pitched into a defender role. It was a good sight to behold. Though they lost the game against Fulham, these two guys did give a lot of challenges to all forwards. It would be a sight to behold when the two would play the forward role one day. glory to united till the two maintain top form.