Carrick of 07/08 was great, solid in the tackle and showed a great range of passing. Anderson had a fantastic first season playing alongside him. Since then he's become as immobile as a statue, plays practically a yard in front of the CB's and gone is the long range passing. Anderson and Cleverly started of this season well although there were some frailties defensively, I think they complement each other very well because they are so similar in the way they want to play and move the ball forward. I think either of those two can do the job in CM but they either need to be alongside each other or a better DM than currently at the club. I think even Scholes in his prime would struggle to influence the game half as much as he did next to Carrick or Fletcher of these days.
The jury is still out on Cleverly, he's done well, though I haven't seen enough of him in first team action, to say wether he is going to be that world class CM were desperate for. I realy do hope he is though. I personally don't think we are likely to find a player as good as Scholesy in his prime though, but players of his ability (particularly English ones) rarely come along
The main consensus is that we need one midfielder..the guy we haven't replaced- not Scholes but Owen Hargreaves. We need someone that is strong defensively as well as stopping the opposition from having too much space.
Yeah, even more so with injuries and if Giggs retires at the end of the season (probably won't but you never know with injuries, real drop in form). If we had central midfielders for the first team in January say of Anderson, Fletcher, Carrick, Cleverley, Giggs*. Park*, maybe someone that has come through, possibly Pogba. It's not going to take a lot to improve that midfield quite a bit, so I used Javi Martinez for a solution in another thread so I'll say him again, it's just the right combination and I don't think (I'm going to say this with 99% certainty) SAF knows either.
