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CARLITOS' WAY
By Keith Moss |
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...In happier times
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I've noticed that Carlitos is a little anxious because he's not playing for Manchester United as a starter...
Diego Maradonna
Carlos (or 'Carlitos', to a certain former high-powered high-powdering human-Hoover) Tevez - the hard-working, tough-tackling, bench-warming Argentine battering-ram. To have such an industrious, fearless and indeed fearsome player at your disposal only to so regularly confine him to the bench that he might as well have his mail redirected to it, is surely a waste. Why not play him out wide? Where his workrate is a match for the Portugeezers' SHIRKrate. Especially in games that warrant a more cavalier attacking approach - which could well be worth esssentially an extra point where goal difference is concerned, something which may well prove crucial come the last day of the season - all the more pertinent with the way United are threatening the mother of all Devon Loch's at the time of writing...
To field all four of United's strike-force - Ron and Tevez providing width with Roo in the hole behind the Devil-with-the-face-of-an-Angel (and with young Welbeck on the bench in reserve) could scare the bejaysus out of opposition defences, and perhaps perform the time-honoured trick of all the legendary title-winning sides, that of defeating the opposition psychologically before kick-off upon them reading the team-sheet and realising that Ronaldo-Rooney-Berbatov-Tevez will be able to break simultaneously, to devastating effect. Look through the current United side and you've got quality and strength-in-depth pretty much everywhere...except out wide. Tosic? He's still a newbie rookie. Nani? When he learns to pass, cross and shoot, he'll be a decent player. Anyone who's seen Fletcher play wide will know that he has all the pinpoint accuracy of Dick Cheney with a twelve-bore. That just leaves The Diva Diver - who himself is less a winger than a free-role forward, and who rarely if ever (if Evra!) races to the byline and whips in crosses - being more likely to be the recipient of a cross than the provider. Hence why he leaves it to Evra more often than not to perform the duties that by rights should be tackled by a winger first and a full-back second. Giggs has played centrally all season, for were he to venture wide, each of his thirty-five years would ensure his spell on the pitch - not to mention his ability to cast spells on the pitch - would peter out quicker than Barry McGuigan's "singing" 'career'. What, you didn't know he'd tried his hand at the ol' pop malarkey after the boxing went tits-up? There's a reason for that, la. So that just leaves all-over-the-Park Ji-Sung. "The turning point of a career in Korea being insincere". Don't get me wrong, I like him. His tireless energy, his spirited thrusts into goalscoring positions, his er, apparent inability to place a ball either side of that thing it keeps bumping into en route to goal - namely, the keeper. Park is perhaps the only player worthy of the tag 'squad player' at United who is a certain starter in the big games. Not because he's particularly good of course, more that the other options are worse. Another reason why Tevez would be better deployed out wide is that he simply doesn't score enough goals to warrant playing up-front ahead of Berba and Roo. So, do you leave him on the bench and risk him growing so disaffected that he decides to up sticks and decamp to SurReal Madrid, the club he has most often been linked with in the event of a departure from OT? Not when the other wide options lack more capacity for penetration than you'd find in Bob Dole's nether regions before the blue pill kicks in. If Park gets the nod for his willingness to run tirelessly and more often than not, pointlessly, then Carlitos ought to oust him out of his Way...
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