Hargreaves crocked; Brown rocked
Owen Hargreaves is injured, which is really disappointing. He’s been man of the match for England’s last 5 games or something silly, and he won’t easily be replaced. The press are suggesting Carrick will come in, but I hope not. Where this idea of Carrick as a holding midfielder came from I’m not sure. He does play deep, and plays pretty passes from deep, but he does not tackle. Ever. Against Ecuador in the World Cup, before the BBC’s joking buffoons had deigned to notice Hargreaves, Carrick was getting all kinds of silly praise. Well in that game he didn’t make a single tackle. Hargreaves made 14 or something against Sweden in the game before, and god knows how many in his one-man battle with Portugal. And that is what a holding midfielder is for, to spoil opposition attacks and restart them simply. Paul Ince did it, even good old David Batty did it, and Hargreaves has been outstanding at it in recent times. Carrick simply doesn’t play this way, and I hope he doesn’t get the chance in an England shirt. We’ll be as porous as a woollen jumper.
This isn’t to say that Carrick’s not a good footballer, of course he is, more that I personally don’t believe he is well suited for that role. Alec Ferguson must partially agree or he wouldn’t have gone for Hargreaves in the transfer window. The player I would like to see picked is Scott Parker, who plays further up the field for Newcastle but who has the complete game needed for this position. In fact, I’d play Parker instead of Lampard too, but that’s another story (feel free to add your own views to the comments below, incidentally!).
Michael Brown is of course nowhere near this level, but distinguished himself playing in the holding role at the weekend. I’ve been quick enough to criticise him before, so will equally quickly praise him when he is contributing. He was everywhere against Spurs and seemed to really relish being the senior man in the midfield (Boa excepted, but he hardly counts these days). The differences between Hargreaves and Brown are not small, of course, but the main thing to notice with the Bayern player is how careful he is in possession. He seldom misplaces a pass, going through entire games recently with only one or two going astray, despite getting an awful lot of the ball. Brown is neither as involved nor as accurate, but now he’s in his natural position it’ll be really interesting to see how he progresses. He has Mr Lampard and friends to deal with next weekend, which will be great to see. I can’t wait to see Volz getting stuck into the Chelsea midfield either.
In the interests of prettying things up, here’s the latest from the Slavia Prague website front page. I tell ya, if Fulham want to jazz things up this is the way to go. Does anyone buy corporate sponsorship after accidentally noticing it plastered all over the team’s website anyway?
