Were Carrick & Fellaini dominated by Southampton's powerful midfield?

Marouane Fellaini

Manchester United and Southampton fought out a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford on Saturday, making it five league games unbeaten for the Saints, who lie in sixth place, and only three wins in eight for United, who remain down in eighth place in the Premier League table.

The scoreline wasn’t the only statistic that the two teams were evenly matched in, with both winning four corners apiece, the possession evenly split 50-50, the pass completion rate almost identical and Southampton slightly edging the shot count, 18 to 12.

One of the most intriguing match-ups of the game came in the centre of the park, where two teams playing similar systems had two diverse and talented central midfielders up against each other; Michael Carrick and Marouane Fellaini for the home side, and Morgan Schneiderlin and Victor Wanyama for the away team.

The mix of talents and attributes that each pair brings to their team is remarkably similar; technique, reading of the game and good positioning from Schneiderlin and Carrick, with a robust, physical, aerial and energetic presence for Wanyama and Fellaini—which isn’t to say the latter two are there merely for their work-rate.

As a combination, they bring much to the table which could be wanted from a central midfield, and the full range of their abilities was on show on Saturday.

Impressively for the Southampton duo, they lived up to the challenge of matching United’s pair during the game.

The first port of call for a midfielder is, or should be, to be able to pass and retain possession. All four did this well, though the United two were marginally ahead of their rivals both from a total passes perspective and an accuracy one. Fellaini earned top billing here, completing 45 of his 57 passes, the highest number in both cases out of all four players. Wanyama, with a 77% completion rate, scored lowest in this regard, though his propensity to over-play long balls at times contributes to his downfall in this regard.

It was, of course, Schneiderlin and Carrick who made the greater number of telling balls, with both players noted for both their technique and game intelligence. Both players recorded two key passes, with Carrick also making a total of two passes into the attacking penalty area and Schneiderlin managing one. Neither of the two more physical centre midfielders managed to find such incisiveness in the final third.

Defensively, Schneiderlin was again prominent. He attempted a total of seven tackles during the game, made two interceptions and three clearances, a total of 12 key defensive actions unmatched by any of the other three.

Fellaini managed five interceptions, while Wanyama was impressive in wining all four of his tackles made during the 82 minutes he was on the pitch for.

The match at Old Trafford followed the course that the season so far has seen from this quartet of players; Schneiderlin and Carrick have already proven not only important players, but effective and quality ones for Southampton and United respectively.

Nobody has created more chances for United than Carrick has this season (11), while both players have recorded an 86% pass completion rate over the campaign so far and both players are the midfielder with the highest number of defensive actions per game for their respective sides.

They have also, remarkably, won almost identical percentages of tackles, 79% to 80% in favour of the Frenchman, though he has made a far greater volume than Carrick, 33 to 15.

It’s also worth mentioning that as a relatively deep-lying quartet of midfielders, it is no surprise that none of them have managed to score this season as yet, but Schneiderlin and Fellaini in particular would be expected to change that statistic sooner or later. It’s a little more surprising that not a single assist has yet been registered by any of the four.

Both United and Southampton can boast good relative depth in the centre of midfield, but the pairings of Carrick and Fellaini, and Schneiderlin and Wanyama, are undoubtedly the best mix of traits that either side can offer up right now in the first team. The latter two are perhaps enjoying the spotlight a little more at present as United struggle to get results early on this season, but it would be no surprise, given their individual talents and the teams they are both playing in, to see all four of them end the season with European football to look forward to next term.