Is Michael Carrick The Most Underrated Central Midfielder Or Is He Deserving Of The Criticism?

Is Michael Carrick The Most Underrated Central Midfielder Or Is He Deserving Of The Criticism?
  

For most of his playing career Carrick has been on the end on a large amount of criticism for his playing style and this in turn has lead to people to question whether he is good enough to play for teams such as United and England.

When Carrick first joined United for a estimated fee of £18.6 million, many were very quick to doubt him and his ability. Many reasons for this is his playing style, he was brought in to replace Roy Keane even though he is not a similar player to Roy Keane in any way what so ever. Keane was a hard hitting center midfielder who would dive into crunching tackles early on to get his team the ball back at all costs. No matter how hard Carrick tries, this is not his playing style and never will be so from the very beginning he was under unneeded pressure to replace a club icon who he does not share a similar playing style. The way Carrick plays is not always appreciated or noticed at first but if you watch the game closely and watch Carrick closely you will see how amazing Carrick really is. He can retain possession with ease which in turn allows our attacking players such as Rooney, Cleverley, RVP and Nani, to play however they wan't without the fear of them having to calm play down and keep the ball as they know fair well that Carrick will very rarely give the ball away.

To make him even better his passing ability is top class, his short balls are always completed but what stands out the most are his top draw through balls from long distance, chipping it over the top of defense, an example of this was the 4-3 United v Newcastle match where in the dying moments Carrick took the ball looked up and chipped the ball over the entire Newcastle defense for Hernandez to score the winner. As always Carrick was overlooked but that is another great thing about him, no matter what he does he never tries to steal the spotlight and this works well for a team.

                                         Carrick's pass for the Hernandez winner in this video



Also just look at his trophy hall for United over his Manchester United career. 11 trophies spread between 4 Premier League Titles, 4 Community Shields, 1 League Cup, 1 Champions League and 1 FIFA Club World Cup. So surely with this amount of trophies you logically have to be a good player?

On the other hand there are a couple of things that Michael Carrick can improve in his game. For example even though it is not his main job as a deep central midfielder, but his finishing leaves a lot to be desired as he struggles to hit the target even the simplest of chances. Surprisingly for a midfielder who drops back more than most he is not a great tackler.

On the whole though I think Carrick is one of the most underrated midfielders not only in the Premier League but also in Europe, and deserves a lot more plaudits from pundits and journalists a like.