The central midfield is one of the most important positions of any team on the field and it is this position that can make the difference between a winning and a losing outfit.
When we talk of Manchester United for the past few seasons, we cannot ignore the contribution of Michael Carrick in the centre of the pitch under manager Sir Alex Ferguson and the tremendous impact he had on the team. Many argue that the decline of United this season has had a lot to do with the reduced performance of Carrick and the flaws that he has committed in his position.
ArtetaNow coming to Mikel Arteta, it can be said that he has been decent in a season when Arsenal have pushed for the title and have been in a position from where they can won the FA Cup. We make a comparative study between the two and try and determine the effectiveness of both the players on their respective teams.
A central midfielder plays the pivotal role in his team’s plans and he has the dual role of attacking as well as restricting the opposition. There are many traits that are required in a central midfielder, but among them one of the most important is his ability to pass the ball around and his overall distribution.
Both Carrick and Arteta score high points in this regard with the former making 88% of his average passes accurate and the latter a notch higher at 92%. They have both distributed the ball well in the centre of the park and the attackers have benefitted from this. But as the statistics shows, Arteta has been slightly better than his United counterpart, which was not the scenario a season before and thus the better display of Arsenal as a team.
Central midfielders are needed to be defensively active and Carrick is more defensive minded than Arteta in his characteristic. Carrick has made 6 defensive actions in average per match this season, while Arteta has made 4. This validates the tendency of Carrick to drop down more and help the defence more than the Arsenal man.
Also Carrick has won 50% of the duels that he has committed himself into while Arteta has won 49% of the duels. There is not much of a difference, but with Carrick’s knack of dropping back more, this number should have been higher for Carrick in comparison to Arteta.
Another important fact is that while Carrick has made no defensive errors this season, Arteta has committed 4 defensive errors highlighting Carrick’s abilities.
Now in their attacking contributions, Carrick has created 19 chances in total in comparison to Arteta’s 14. The poorer midfield of United gives Carrick the additional responsibility to also make an impact going forward and this has slightly hampered his performance defensively. Arteta, on the other hand, has a gifted midfield ahead of him with the likes of Ozil, Cazorla and Ramsey around. It is not his primary responsibility to create chances for his team and the numbers are proof enough of that.
All in all, we can see that this has been a pretty average season for Carrick and a decent season in Arteta’s standards, although it cannot be termed as breakthrough.
If United are to reclaim that number one spot anytime in the near future, Carrick’s performance must improve and he should again be the anchor of this team like he used to be in the Fergie era.
Stats taken from Squawka