Clearly you have no idea then, cos he wasnt playing central for Wigan.... he is for United, and where do you think the supply for the those players comes from? Him, average 50 passes a game with 91% accuracy, fufilling the role of the passer perfectly so far. Never heard so much nonsense. How can they make him look good, when he's the one giving them the ball?
If he keeps it up he will have more than enough for the next two games. As for the bold, every top side fields a defensive player alongside the creative one, its called protecting the back 4
I agree with all your points, although I do think there is
too much fuss being made over him, although he is a quality player I think we should give him a season or so and see if he can keep up his consistency.
Even players with the best potential haven't turned into superstars, so don't count your chickens before they hatch.
Francis Jeffers, Bojan Krkic, etc. have been dubbed before as potential superstars, yet look where Jeffers is now and Bojan is not in the Spanish nor Barca first team (although it is a tough achievement).
Yet players like Cesc Fabregas, Gerard Pique, Daniel Agger, etc.
have reached their potential, so we should wait a bit longer before raving about him.
I
do agree that he is a top player with bags of potential but he was played 'out of position' at Wigan and had a bad spell. He's also done well at Watford on loan, so it's not like he's
just turned into a good player!
I agree 100% with your second point - although I think Barry shouldn't play, Parker or even Hargreaves are better (although the latter shouldn't be included
yet)! It's a combination every successful team should have, to be fair.
Where would Barca be without Busquets? How could Holland attack with confidence if they didn't know that the reliable De Jong was behind them? How did the 'successful' 2007/8 Liverpool team finish second if it wasn't for the tough tackling Mascherano? They aren't rated amongst the best, but what they do isn't easy and they don't get the recognition they deserve.
When you talk about the Barca 'greats' you talk about Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Pedro, Villa and now Fabregas but has the solid rock which they can fall back on (Busquets) been mentioned? No. But he is vital to their play, breaking up the opposition attacks and distributing the ball to more creative players (such as Xavi).
To be honest, Parker is so over-rated. Fair enough, he is a quality player. But its the team he's playing for, he looks good playing for West Ham. He was never anything special at Newcastle or his short stay at Chelsea. Any player can look good in a poor team. Much like Francis Jeffers when he played at Everton and Mateja Kezman at PSV. Good players can look good when playing alongside poor players.
Rooney is the best player there, hands down. I certainly wouldn't like to see Cleverley in my starting 11. Such a fuss is being made of him this season, its easy to look good when your playing for what looks to be an astonishingly good United side.
It's easier to look good at a big club rather look good at a small club. If you name the best players of last season, would you name DJ Campbell?
Yet you would name Berbatov (I bet) even though we wasn't in Fergie's first team, just because he played against 'smaller' teams and had a good supply (many of his goals were hattricks against 'smaller' teams).
Vorm - do you think he's good or bad? Look at his statistics on paper and it's bad, conceding 4 against City. Yet it could of been much, much more if it hadn't been for him.
Why do you think Valdes gets more clean sheets than Casillas even though the latter is Spanish captain and Valdes sometimes isn't even in the
squad?
It's because he has Pique and Puyol in from of him, which make him look good. Pepe and Carvalho are not the best of defenders and they are nowhere near as solid as Pique-Puyol.
Jeffers, Kezman...whatever
looked good because
they were good. It's hard to perform well in a rubbish team - you will get frustrated and your morale will go down, you can't rely on your teammates much, you have to do most of the work for them (and therefore get tired).
If you're in a good team, then they can afford to rest you when you're tired out, you don't have to be
everywhere and if you're winning, you're bound to be happy.
It's crucial for England that Cleverley keeps supplying those passes. Especially against Tottenham in the first part of the match he just wasn't there. He picked up his game later on, but England isn't as strong as Man Utd.
We need an 'Advanced Playmaker', a person like Lampard (although he isn't very good anymore) who can spray passes all over the pitch. Gerrard is better all-round, Wilshere is better playing deep, Lampard is past it, Young is better out wide and Thudd isn't good enough for the England First XI.
Cleverley could be the man for England, the next Wesley Sneidjer, the next Paul Scholes, the next Xavi Hernandez, the next great midfield passer. But first he's got to prove himself over a
long period of time. Sure, these aren't his first Premier League games but these are the first games he's played well in. He needs to sustain this consistency if he's to be a great, the first team playmaker for England.
On the plus side, we're finally developing some proper depth for our national team. Young's stepped up from being a winger on the decline to being properly scary again (the majority of that will be from playing with better teammates, but some credit surely must go Fergie's way once more), Smalling and Jones will soon be good enough to start for England, Cleverley's wonderfully versatile and if nothing else a brilliant backup to Wilshere, Welbeck's breaking through.
Quite apart from United, there are a whole host of people. Huddlestone, Delph (who doesn't quite deserve a call up yet, but give him half a season), Downing, Walker and a whole host of others can complement the first-teamers. It's a far cry from when Jermaine Jenas got 21 caps for England.
Yep. It's an exciting time for England - there is depth (not in GK position though), great youth and some 'Golden Oldies' such as Gerrard, Terry, Ferdinand and Lampard.
We owe (as much as I hate to say this) a
lot to United for developing all this youth - Ferguson has found the right combination between experience and youth. Some of it's produced by the club, some of it's brought but the important thing is they are playing well and showing great potential.
And his knees are "perfect".