“IT’S CARRICK YOU KNOW…IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE IT’S NOT SCHOLES!” Ahead of the PFA Awards on Sunday night we’ve used ProZone data to analyse Michael Carrick’s passing compared to the average midfielder and make a case for him winning on Sunday. The data shows (Enlarge the picture below):
- Carrick has completed 2501 passes this season, the highest in the league
- He has an 82.4% success rate for forward passes, compared to the average Premier League midfielder’s 72.8% success rate
- He makes 73.3 successful passes in a match, compared to the average Premier League midfielder’s 37.7 successful passes
Accompanying quote from Carrick:
“It’s a great honour to be nominated for the PFA Player of the Year award by my fellow professionals. Its been a great season for Manchester United and being nominated for The PFA player of the year award as well as winning the league caps a wonderful season for me”
Does Carrick deserve winning the PFA awards?
For more on PUMA players’ performance head to PUMA FOOTBALL
Nice article Majido; stats to support your case, how unusual in this day and age of blowing ‘hotair’.
Michael Carrick has reached a footballing zenith; serenely commanding and subtly, but unquestionably influential. He possesses an authority and control that players only ever consistently achieve in their thirties – through experience and knowhow – and that conjures the key word: consistency. The term is often applied to those regularly rating above average, but the word ‘average’ looks like an outcast in the sentence describing Carrick. This season he’s often been brilliant. Controlling as your stats display the tempo and retaining possession of the football vitally important. A skill mastered by the big central midfielders and Michael Carrick is in a select class of a few in deep -lying midfielders currently amongst the finest in Europe.
One of Carricks finest matches he has commanded as an example was the 3-1 win over Sunderland in December. United thrashed Martin O’Neils side in the first 45 minutes and almost every assault on the Black Cats goal originated from our No16s guile.
Indeed recently our elder statesman Rio Ferdinand described Michael Carricks pass against Chelsea in the March FA Cup tie to find Javier Hernandez some 35 yards away from the Blue’s goal.
The young United star gratefully nodded home Carricks fantastic diagonal clipped ball. As Rio described the subtle disguised pass ” The pass was a thing of beauty.”
Other contenders for United player of the season: outwith PFA player award should be Rio Ferdinand himself with our fabulous young Spanish goal- keeper De Gea, Patrice Evra having one of his best seasons ever and of course Ryan Giggs for obvious longevity reasons. Opssie I forgot the Dutch Skunk as he is lovingly termed by our Arsenal friends. You gotta love envy; it’s such a bitch!
Lets hope for a convincing win at the library later today Mr Editor!
Hope all is well mate. Love kisses and all that guff from Scotland. lol.
Ps I hope I didn’t make any ‘ grammar or punctuation errors’.:)
Carrick is massively underrated, he has given his all for Manchester United for a long time now and has been the silent superstar of the squads success for many years. I think he deserves more credit than he gets and there have been a lot worse players than him voted player of the year!