Midfielder Tom Cleverley has been the secondary scapegoat (Manager David Moyes is obviously the primary person having the angry fingers pointed at him) for Manchester United fans this season.
Tom Cleverley took so much abuse from United fans online that he actually had to shut down his Twitter feed. There was a petition to get Cleverley removed from United just after the January transfer window had passed.You can look at it here. Then came a petition to get Cleverley off the England National Team for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. However, rumors of his demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Let’s look at the numbers now, and stay away from the emotion. What do emotionless statistics say? We know how we think and feel already?
After all, United seem to be extending his contract and handing him more money.
So is Tom Cleverley really that terrible/awful/horrible/bad at what he does for a living? Our friends at Sports Matrix published post comparing Manchester United’s Tom Cleverley, Swansea’s Jonjo Shelvey and Aston Villa’s Fabian Delph asking the question of whether the later two should have been in the England squad at the expense of the United man. From the outset it is important to note that when players are ‘assigned’ positions, it is usually for media purposes and does not give the full story. What we mean by this is as follows: look at Dani Alves of Brazil and Barcelona.
By position title, he is a right back but in reality he moves up the field in attack just as much as any right sided midfielder. The point is more entrenched when looking at his counterpart on the left side of the field where Jordi Alba is more defensive minded and does not move up the field as much. So both players are classified as defenders but their styles and positions on the actual field could not be more different.
It is for this reason they have decided to focus our attention on where the players actually spend most of their game time. Let’s start off with Tom Cleverley. At this link you will find a heat map based on where he has played this season so far.
He is the classic 50/50 midfielder who is involved in all aspects of the game. He does play a more centralized role in the team with no preference for the right or left being apparent.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An MBA and Fulbright scholar, he’s also a frequent analyst on news talk radio; with regular segments on ESPN,NBC, CBS and Fox. A former NBC Chicago and Washington Times writer, he’s also been featured on the History Channel. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)