The changes to take United back to Europe’s summit?
Our midfield was the most blessed: Beckham, the crossing king; Keane, the midfield dynamo & destroyer; Scholes, Ginger Passing Prince and snake hipped Giggs. Only if lady luck sprinkled a barrel of fairy dust over Old Trafford would we see another set of players with similar qualities.
Looking at the current team United might not be in a crisis as it was felt in the past season or two but we are in a spot of bother.
Although looking good towards the tail end of the season, Carrick showed that he couldn’t be trusted to patrol our backline with costly mistakes against Valencia and even more costly against Man City in the FA Cup semi-final. Fletcher’s bout with this mystery virus will mean that he will not be back to best form for a while. Despite a bright start to the season, Cleverley hasn’t by any stretch of the imagination made it leaving Anderson as the only player capable of commanding a first XI position.
Our soft underbelly was shown last season when we hit the road. Astonishingly we won the same amount of away games as relegated Blackpool.
So what is the solution? I suggest we look at a regista and distruttore.
Before I go into how we go about getting these types of midfielders, I think that it is best that I enlightened you about the history of the roles, their functions and their importance.
Both derived from and are commonly used in Italian football knowledge.
I will start first with the Regista, the term literally means ‘director’ as he directs the play in whatever which direction and he is often the central point in the creative play.
He can be referred to as a deeper version of an advanced playmaker but he has to have defensive capabilities as well. The best thing about these players is that they often don’t lose the ball and can be trusted to move the play on to more advanced players.
He doesn’t fret about wanting to get forward and score goals and even though he may not get the last touch on the ball, which makes it an assist, he is probably going to be a starting point or an integral part of the goal as a whole. They may be of great importance but that still doesn’t change the fact that these players are becoming fewer and far between.
Pirlo enjoyed a long spell at AC Milan in the role and Xavi Hernandez has brought glamour to the role making them a hotly sought after commodity. Javier Pastore moved to PSG for €43 million, Chelsea are trying to go after Modric as well and there are a number of clubs interested in signing Paulo ‘Ganso’ Henrique.
We lost our regista in the summer when Paul Scholes retired. His talent is so unique that the only way he could ever be replaced is by being replaced by a player bought from another club. Chelsea have struck gold with the development of Josh McEachran but Manchester United do not have the time to wait for that type of player to come through and there are no players with the same acumen as a regista.
Click here for Part 2 of this blog
He disrupts the rhythm of play for the other team and wins the ball back for his. His doesn’t shy away from a tackle, fully committed in challenges even if it runs the risk of him picking up 10 yellow cards in one season.
There are two types of distruttore: one’s primary cause is to just disturb the opposition play and lay the ball off to the a more creative player to create something for the team or there is the midfield dynamo, who is filled with energy and gets up and down the park sometimes carrying the ball from one box to another and when he doesn’t have the ball he fulfils his duty as a destroyer.
Roy Keane has probably been the best distruttore/dynamo Manchester United ever had and he’s departure left us in a big lurch.
There was recently a racism storm in France where it was alleged that some of the top brass in the French FA wanted to produce more home grown talent which were white since they wanted more intelligent players.
They thought the black players were only good for running about and ruffing up players. And as you can see from their current crop of talent, they have a massive amount of players in the same mould of distruttore/dynamo. Like, M’Vila, Fofana etc.
I think that if we buy one of each then we will rectify our away form and with it maybe become the Champions of Europe again.
I feel that the regista signing should be Ganso because even though he plays as a fantasista, playmaker for Santos, the way he plays is more suited to the profession of regista. He says himself that if he touches the ball more than two times he feels like he has failed as a player and this is important as a regista as he is required to move the ball on quickly and accurately.
He is also Brazilian and he can easily fit into the squad because there are a lot of Latin players like Rafael, Fabio, and Anderson etc.
The distruttore role is a bit more difficult to choose because we have Pogba who is a midfield dynamo but he is too young to be a force in the first XI right now so who should get the role?
Anderson has shown he is more than capable at playing that role but he has shown that playing further up field he can be a force as well as score goals.
At the top of the summer I thought that Lassana Diarra would be a brilliant signing but that didn’t materialise and maybe it was best because it looks like we can cover this role from within the squad but the special responsibility of the regista needs to be addressed immediately.
But how are we going to incorporate these players into a 4-4-2 formation? I think that there’s a better formation for it…
Part two of United Redz’s piece can be read tomorrow