Over the last couple of months we have heard from a whole stack of past and current Manchester United players about just how hard it will be to replace Paul Scholes – although that of course is not something that our fans would not be aware of.
Sir Alex Ferguson has also spoken about just how hard it will be to replace our former midfielder and yesterday claimed that it will be hard to sign Inter Milan’s Wesley Sneijder who we have been heavily linked with over the last 18 months.
Some fans doubt that Fergie’s admission that it be hard to sign the Dutchman could well be a ploy that we will sign him, as it’s certainly a change in his stance from a couple of weeks ago where he denied any knowledge of us attempting to sign him.
Regardless of that, there is the feeling that we haven’t heard the last of the Sneijder ‘will it happen’ rumour this summer. There is no doubt that it will still be a leading story across the media for the next fortnight or so.
Whilst it may look unlikely that we will bring in anyone to replace Scholes, as ideally you get the feeling that Sir Alex and the club will want to do a deal before the season starts rather than have to rush through a deal in the final days of the transfer window.
Michael Carrick in a webchat with manutd.com spoke about how our players need to share the work-load now as a result of losing Scholes:
“Losing a player like Paul is a loss – he brings so much to the team,” Carrick said.
“He was a world-class player, so you have to compensate in other ways. We have done that in the past – we lost Cristiano Ronaldo a few years ago and people didn’t think we’d get over it. But different players step up – maybe it is not one player but we share the responsibility.”
Carrick’s point about the team adapting after the departure of Ronaldo to Real Madrid back in 2009 is certainly an interesting one. Of course whilst ‘twinkle-toes’ was clearly the star of our team in his final 2-3 seasons at the club, there’s no doubt that the team relied heavily on others in order for him to score and create so many goals.
However of course in those seasons his form was pivotal to our success and the team did have to play a certain way to bring out the best in him which of course would be to the benefit of the team.
Of course after his departure the team did play a different way which allowed Wayne Rooney to be the focal point of our attack and of course two seasons ago (until his injury in the final stages of the season) he was at times unstoppable for us.
Losing the experience and mentality of Scholes will obviously hurt us, but in all honesty when it really comes down to it I don’t think we will miss Scholes that much next season.
Amongst all the wonderful tributes that have been said about our former midfielder, it’s easy to forget that his form (which has always been great) dipped and certainly last season he was not a player who was pivotal to our success.
It will though be important to bring in someone in if Sir Alex is able to. Whilst of course it will be hard to replace Scholes’ legacy at the club, there’s no doubt that there are midfielders available who can certainly replace the Scholes of last season and do a more than good-enough job in our midfield.
At United though we will always be looking for that world-class players though and of course in terms of creative central midfielders there are not too many about that come to mind who we would be able to bring in.
Perhaps the ideal player for us though isn’t Sneijder but another playmaker who starred at last year’s World Cup in South Africa – Real Madrid’s Mesut Ozil who has a huge future ahead of him.
Ozil seemingly has it all and his form in Spain last season after his move from Werder Bremen was sensational and even had Kaka not been injured for large chunks of the season it’s highly unlikely that the former World Cup winner would have got a look in ahead of the German.
It’s just a shame that he’s loving life in Madrid at the moment and in any case Jose Mourinho wouldn’t want to sell him. Perhaps though should Mourinho replace Sir Alex in the near future perhaps he would take Ozil to Old Trafford with him. Or is that just wishful thinking?
By @ADennehey87
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