Michael Carrick, a canny midfield marvel who went underappreciated | Liam Rosenior

The Manchester United player retires at the end of the season amid a sense that his unfussy, intelligent midfield prompting never got the recognition of his more celebrated peers

Ask yourself who are the top English midfield players of the past 20 years. We’ll rightly look back and tell the next generation about the wonderful all-round ability of Steven Gerrard, the outstanding goalscoring record and timing of runs of Frank Lampard and the sheer technical prowess of Paul Scholes, who created and scored goals. But there’s another midfielder who deserves his place among these legends: a player with exceptional passing and ability to dictate the flow of a football match with his positional play and intelligence, who has been undervalued, underappreciated and overlooked – especially at international level.

Michael Carrick is set to retire at the end of this season and though he isn’t a player to grab the headlines with 30-yard goals into the top corner or ever top the charts in the goals scored or assists column, every time I watched him over the years for Manchester United he amazed me by making the game look so simple – not only making the correct pass but having an appreciation for his team‑mate to receive possession with a “message” so that they wouldn’t have to break stride or so that they knew exactly where their opponent was as well.

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