To be fair I think Fergie has had his hand forced into experimenting in midfield, trying to shove square pegs into round holes etc due to the injury/supension/sale/lack of form in that area of the pitch. The main reason Fletcher is playing because there isn't anyone else, if you look at the past, his main two there were Keane and Scholes, with the likes of Butt, P.Neville, Miller, DJ-DJ, Kleberson etc as backup. However all those players have now been sold, except for Scholes who is out for the season.
So basically he's been experimenting with O'Shea, Giggs, Smith etc in the centre of the park because he doesn't have any other options available to him. Some might call this poor foresight on his part, but not many could have predicted what happened to Scholes and Keane.
In my view only the following players pick themselves at MU (ignoring players with long term injuries etc):
VdS
Neville
Ferdinand
Ronaldo
Rooney
RvN
The rest is down to Fergie and what he decides to do. I'd be tempted to experiment with Rio in midfield, something like:
..................Van der Sar
Neville......Brown........Vidic....Evra/O'Shea
Ronaldo...Park/Fletcher...Rio...Giggs/Richardson
................Rvn.....Rooney
Obviously against good strong teams, Rio might need someone with a bit more bite than Park alongside him. But vs the Premiership alsorans, Rio would just be sitting in front of the back 4 and giving Park license to roam forward. He could probably interchange with Ronaldo on the wing at times too.
Normally I'd be turning my nose up at the concept of shoving a CB into midfield, but desperate times call for desperate measures and I think he's got the attributes to be able to handle it - reasonable pace to make up for his suspect concentration, a decent passer and comfortable on the ball. Following the recent purchases, Fergie now has enough defenders at his disposal to cope without Rio back there.
So basically he's been experimenting with O'Shea, Giggs, Smith etc in the centre of the park because he doesn't have any other options available to him. Some might call this poor foresight on his part, but not many could have predicted what happened to Scholes and Keane.
In my view only the following players pick themselves at MU (ignoring players with long term injuries etc):
VdS
Neville
Ferdinand
Ronaldo
Rooney
RvN
The rest is down to Fergie and what he decides to do. I'd be tempted to experiment with Rio in midfield, something like:
..................Van der Sar
Neville......Brown........Vidic....Evra/O'Shea
Ronaldo...Park/Fletcher...Rio...Giggs/Richardson
................Rvn.....Rooney
Obviously against good strong teams, Rio might need someone with a bit more bite than Park alongside him. But vs the Premiership alsorans, Rio would just be sitting in front of the back 4 and giving Park license to roam forward. He could probably interchange with Ronaldo on the wing at times too.
Normally I'd be turning my nose up at the concept of shoving a CB into midfield, but desperate times call for desperate measures and I think he's got the attributes to be able to handle it - reasonable pace to make up for his suspect concentration, a decent passer and comfortable on the ball. Following the recent purchases, Fergie now has enough defenders at his disposal to cope without Rio back there.