Paul Scholes, Manchester United legend, has described Christian Eriksen to be the ideal example of an intelligent midfielder.
The Red Devils icon made his name between 1994 and 2013 as one of the club’s greatest-ever attacking midfielders as his vision and creativity in the middle of the park allowed their flair players to show their quality.
Scholes, now 47, was speaking to Gary Neville, a former teammate. He mentioned the Danish star as an example of what a player at the center of the park should do.
Neville asked Scholes about what he is looking for in a player. Scholes responded The Overlap: “The intelligence. Clever players. Clever players who have a brain.
Asked about Eriksen, Scholes said: “Brilliant. Scholes is the perfect example of a player that plays with intelligence and his brain. He’s just a clever player. He knows where he is on the pitch and he knows where other people are on the pitch.”
Discussing the tendency for midfield players to pass the ball backwards to their defenders, Scholes added: “That’s the problem I saw.
“They got beaten by somebody and it’s a bit harsh on Scott [McTominay]Fred and Fred were back to goal every time. You talk about people receiving the ball with their back to goal, it’s the only way that they could go.
“You should be on the half-turn, so that I can still see you, but I can see my forward as well.
“You see Casemiro do it. Eriksen does it all the time. See the goal against Arsenal. Eriksen got it on the half turn, passed it on to Fernandes, who was also on the half turn, and Rashford scores.
“Small things like that just annoy me because if you’re playing at Manchester UnitedThat should not be impossible. You’d expect that.”
Scholes was asked a number of quick-fire questions and named Liverpool’s Anfield and Newcastle’s St James’ Park as the away grounds that he loved playing at, before making a surprising admission about his famous long-range effort against Barcelona in the Champions League.
Picking up the ball at Old Trafford in the semi-finals of Europe’s biggest competition 2008, Scholes lashed an effort into the top corner of the net to send them into the final, but admitted that his effort didn’t exactly go as planned.
He said: “It was a miskick. It came off my outside foot!
“You know when you’re trying to hit it that way, with a bit of fade on it, it should go outside of the post and then into the other corner really.
“I wasn’t thinking of doing that, I was just thinking of hitting the target, to be honest with you, but when it goes towards the goalkeeper and that way, you don’t mean that. No chance.”
Asked if it was the most important goal that he scored, Scholes said: “It was the most important goal, yeah.”
Football has many promising talents that people can emulate in the future.
Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland look like the main contenders to battle it out for the best player in the world tag, but according to Scholes, it’s the Frenchman who is marginally more impressive.
Scholes said: “I’d go Mbappe. I think there’s more to his game [than Haaland], he’s not just an out-and-out centre-forward, is he?
“He can go wide, he can dribble past people, he’s quick, he can play one-twos. Look, Haaland is f***ing amazing, don’t get me wrong, but he is a goalscorer, isn’t he?”
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