ok an actual real analysis; (because i fear carix is getting annoyed at me, and didnt appreciate the carix to carrick joke)
I believe carrick decreases the tempo of the game and hurts the cut and thrust of both england and man utd. i feel alot safer when we play a utd with carrick in the side, because he lacks any kind of physical presense, i feel his positioning is suspect on counter attacks where as the holding style player he gets caught with the ball behind him too often. his distribution, while occasionally excellent, is often sideways and non incisive.
Chances created per game
Francesc Fabregas 3.50
Steven Gerrard 3.06
Mikel Arteta 2.54
David Bentley 2.43
Ryan Giggs 2.35
Passes per game
Francesc Fabregas 72.44
Paul Scholes 66.33
Frank Lampard 57.42
Mathieu Flamini 57.00
Javier Mascherano 53.72
Assists
Fabregas 17
Young 14
Barry 10
Kalou 10
Rooney 10
Bentley 9
Berbatov 9
Elano 9
Nani 9
Shorey 9
Total passes and passing accuracy
Fabregas 2318 81.06%
Clichy 1975 83.19%
Flamini 1710 86.55%
Gerrard 1652 77.66%
Butt 1630 75.03%
Scholes 1592 89.70%
Carrick 1585 83.22%
Hleb 1552 82.73%
Ferdinand 1546 84.80%
Neville 1533 72.47%
These stats show carrick with the 7th most PL passes, but not even on the assists or chances created tables. Indicating his high % of passes completed are non insisive "so called" safe balls.
Carrick has no outstanding physical qualiites (pace, strength), rarely scores, is a poor tackler, not great in the air for his size, can only play in one position and cost £18 Million. Claiming he's easily the match of many other Prem teams' playmakers' is a misleading one because all the other deep- lying playmakers in the Prem are defensive ones (Alonso, Barry, Mascherano, Mikel) who do the same job as Carrick and prevent goalscoring oppurtunities due to their defensive qualities.
Meanwhile Carrick is trying to be Pirlo by playing the offensive playmaker in front of the centre halves, passing the ball sideways with the odd Hollywood ball now and again. Carrick is one of those players who looks great on the stat sheets (see the above pass completion %) with the huge pass total he accumulates during a game, but unfortunately the problem with stats is that they can't record the intangibles such as ' the right pass for the right situation' and the effectiveness of a pass (judged generally by assist stats? where people like gerrard/lampard/alonso et al excel.
THIS is why i dont rate carrick
happyier now carix?