Manchester United’s midfield is under scrutiny once again after a deflating loss to Wigan Athletic.
Patrick Vieira, now a staff member at Manchester City, described United bringing back Paul Scholes as ‘desperate’.
His words saw him ridiculed in many quarters, with even United boss Sir Alex Ferguson pointing to Carlos Tevez recall as a far more desperate act committed by City themselves.
Paul Scholes has had a tremendous impact on United, as good as any January signing could have made, United winning every league game in which he has featured since coming back, with the exception of the 3-3 draw at Chelsea.
Suddenly Ferguson makes the decision to rest Scholes and United plummet to a 1-0 defeat to Wigan Athletic.
Coincidence? You tell us.
What we can say is that Scholes is only a temporary solution to United’s midfield issues, albeit a fantastic one.
The midfield weakness has been exposed for a long time, dating back to the 2-0 loss to Barcelona in the Rome Champions League final in 2009, and two years later in 2011 when the sides met at Wembley the issue was highlighted badly again.
Despite that Sir Alex Ferguson elected not to do anything about it last summer, even though Scholes retired.
United were linked with a number of players, namely Wesley Sneijder, who may have been a red herring considering his poor season at Inter, but fans were less than enthused when the manager decided the best signing for the centre of midfield was in fact, nobody.
Faith was placed in Tom Cleverley, but his season was wrecked by injuries, and Scholes’ comeback gave the side a lift at the right time, and in January was probably the right move.
It was shrewd not desperate, but there is an element of truth in Monsieur Vieira’s sentiments, if not the literal meaning.
Shrewd it may have been, but it doesn’t mean that United were right not to act last summer to solve the problem, which was again exposed last night through a lack of invention, and a failure to stamp their authority on the game.
If they had fixed their weakness, they would not have had to turn to Scholes in the first place.
Ryan Giggs has struggled in the centre since the turn of the year, and fans are far from convinced Phil Jones is the solution there either, so fans will be praying Scholes is not left out again this season.
You could almost say they will be desperate that he starts all the remaining games.
Patrick Vieira may just be smiling to himself this morning. United though, are still on track to have the last laugh, but the fat lady is further away from the stage than she was this time yesterday.
How costly might United’s defeat to Wigan turn out to be? Have the club been reliant on Scholes orchestrating the midfield?
image: © Magnus D
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