English Premier League: Carrick plus ten million pounds equals to Rodwell?
Honestly speaking the summer transfer window has been a bit of a bore this time around. With the only spicy transfer speculation of Fabregas to Barcelona from Arsenal, a move that itself never materialized due to the Gunners’ high evaluation of their playmaker, the transfer window has thrown up the usual suspects and has failed to incite any sort of imaginative upheaval.
In the dying days of the window, Mascherano’s move to Barcelona has gone through and after 2 months of stating that he wants to be at Barcelona, Ibrahimovic has been shipped off to Italy due to the Swedes differences with Pep Guardiola at the Nou Camp.
English Premier League’s runners up, Manchester United have not been that subdued themselves in the transfer window so far. They have signed Javier Hernandez from the Mexican football league for around 10 million Euros and added to their defence with Chris Smalling’s signature from Fulham. They have also made a long term investment in Bebe’s transfer from Portugal. According to Manchester United’s fans, the club has been relatively weak in spending some of their transfer money due to debt pressure on the red devils, something that is attributed to Malcolm Glazer’s ownership of the English giants.
In the latest round of transfer’s, Portugal’s midfield enforcer Raul Mereiles has sealed a move to Liverpool in the English Premier League. The Merseyside club was quick in reinvesting the money that they obtained from Mascherano’s sale to Barcelona. There is also talk of Carlton Cole to the ex-English league champions but nothing concrete has come out of that rumour thus far.
However for United’s fans, the most eye catching of news has been regarding Jack Rodwell of Everton. There has been talk of Sir Alex Ferguson chasing the young English midfielder but the U-21 International recently signed a new five year contract with Everton. Recent rumours suggest that the long standing manager at Old Trafford is ready to offer the out-of-favour Michael Carrick plus a fee of ten million pounds for Rodwell’s services.
Such an offer will be quite tempting for David Moyes to take up and therefore might actually go through. Nonetheless it might not be as beneficial for Manchester United as some might consider it to be. Michael Carrick has been truly horrific in the past two seasons for Manchester United. The English midfielder has been criticized by pundits and fans alike of his lack of vision and apparent deficit of quality when Manchester United have came up against formidable oppositions like Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
In last season’s UEFA Champions League quarterfinals, Carrick was deployed in a five man midfield by Sir Alex Ferguson against Bayern Munich. In the starting moments of the match, United totally dominated quickly went three goals up by Munich crawled their way back to a three two defeat which meant that Manchester United were knocked out on aggregate away goals due to their two goals to one defeat at the Allianz Arena in Germany.
The demise of Michael Carrick actually started off from the Barcelona versus Manchester United, UEFA Champions League final of the 2008-2009 season. A game where Carrick was a part of a three man midfield for United alongside Giggs and Anderson, Michael surely must not have fond memories of that match as the likes of Iniesta, Xavi and Sergio Busquets totally dominated the midfield area.
Despite his short comings in the past two years, Carrick has one thing on his side that is European experience. Top level European experience, the English International therefore is a much better footballer to have in your ranks if the club is indeed challenging for European success or domestic triumphs even.
Whereas Jack Rodwell might be a star for the future, currently he has little experience in the English Premier League and no experience in European competitions. He has the potential to make it big but given that he is English and was bred through an English system of football, he is less technically gifted than continental players such as Ozil and Khedira.
Fergie would be wise to practice some patience, United’s starting eleven might not be the best when it comes to Europe or the English Premier League itself but their squad is as competent as any other European powerhouse. Something that will come in handy as the season enters into full flight come the UEFA Champion’s League group stages.
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