Welshtel - 28/1/2017 12:18
'RD' said it right, I think Carrick with today's setup, with Pochettino as boss etc and he'd struggle MAYBE with the pace, as someone else said, he was never one for running a lot. I think we have better players now and pace is an issue. Most of our players can place a ball around the pitch well so Carrick has no real advantage over anyone.
At his best Carrick had a better tackle rate and a far better intercept rate than Wanyama, a stalwart in our side. A prime Carrick's passing put's him head and shoulders above everyone else in our team. There is a huge difference between releasing the ball first or second touch and holding it for 5-7 seconds. There is a huge difference between making the pass 5-6 times out of 10 and 8-9 times out of 10.
With a Carrick, Alonso, Pirlo style player, everything happens 5-10 times faster. You receive the ball in more space, you receive the ball at the correct speed and more perfectly weighted, you receive the ball out numbering your markers more often. For the offensive players the game is made far easier for you. Additionally when defending you don't have to worry about over committed midfielders and will likely always out number your opponents offense. Additionally they can no longer over commit as the likely hood of a counter attack is so much higher
Carricks loss to the team was far greater than people realise and was far harder to replace than that of Berbatov, Modric or Bale. With those players we lost a single facet to our game, be it goals or tempo/rhythm. With Carrick we lost tempo and defensive stability. Much like Liverpool did with Alonso. Both teams in experimentation had to source two players to make the same contribution to the team as the single player that left. For instance we had Modric/huddestone playing alongside either zokora or palacios, to replace the effect of just Carrick.
The major criticism of our play which is still being worked on, is that for about 60-70 percent of the time, we look quite pedestrian transitioning from defense to attack in our own half. When we play the high press and turn over possession in the oppositions half we terrorise teams. Though often we find ourselves allowing opposition to form up into tight banks when they lose possession. We have the offensive players in the correct positions at the start of the move, but the ball is often played around the back and is slowly brought forward, often at the defensive invitation of the opposition (Them being too busy getting back into position to bother hounding the ball around the half way line). Often if the opposition plays the high press we make a number of unforced errors.
Having a Carrick, Alonso or Pirlo in the team totally alleviates this. The ball gets to the offensive players in the very first seconds of the ball being turned over. You end of getting the same circumstances present themselves as you do when the ball has been won due to the high press.
Most prem players can pass the ball around, very few know where the balls going to go 10 seconds before it goes there, with the accuracy that is needed.