Man United's Michael Carrick

As we’ve found out throughout the course of this season, the popular social-networking site, Twitter, has become a footballers best friend, and a journalists haven of gossip and potential headlines. This week, it has been the turn of Darron Gibson to be embroiled in a new story with Tweeting connections, albeit his lasted a record-breaking amount of time. But as I chuckled to myself reading the short-sighted opinions people had of the Manchester United man, I started to wonder: what has Michael Carrick done to get himself all wrapped up in this affair?

The midfielder hasn’t even become involved in a positive way. As many were joining the ‘we hate Darron Gibson’ bandwagon, they attempted to attach a ‘lets start on Carrick as well’ side-car. Some of the comments which have caused such a stir around Old Trafford were directly abusive and altogether ignorant of the work both players have done for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side this season.

Even before the FA Cup final mistake, there seems to be a ‘blame Michael Carrick’ cult going around Old Trafford - something I just cannot understand. Just because he plays a similar way to Gibson, Carrick has too become a target of some pretty harsh ‘tweets’. His form recently has been good. Not great, but like many other of United’s players this season, Carrick has been doing enough to keep them top of the pile and on course for a Champions League final. Speaking of the European Cup, I wonder if any of the tweeting bright-sparks saw his performance against Schalke on Tuesday night? Not bad for a player who is apparently rubbish, eh? Ferguson trusts him in the big games. He controls matches with his passing and protects the back four as well as anyone around at the moment. The days of a crunching tackle have gone. Carrick has become the master of the interception which then leads into an attack - something United play on very well.

Gibson on the other hand has always had his critics, me being one of them, sometimes. But firstly, I would never publish such a degrading opinion of someone for the world to see - that’s just cowardly. After-all, the lad has more talent in his left boot than I could ever dream of. But despite what anybody thinks, at a time when United are fighting for several trophies, his inclusion in the squad is not such a bad thing. Are we forgetting Ryan Giggs is 37? Have we not realised that Paul Scholes has been out-of-form and Darren Fletcher has apparently been suffering from the worlds worst case of influenza? I’m not saying lets start the him at the Emirates this weekend, but if Gibson can come in for a game in which the boss trusts his players are good enough to win, why does every other Tom, Dick and Harry seem to want to argue?

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As I mentioned earlier, I had a little laugh to myself and what was being said, in particular towards Carrick, because they were so unjustified and I’m sure neither player will let it bother them. They are both part of a team who are about to achieve something very special, and there is no bigger compliment than being entrusted with the responsibility of pulling United over the line from the manager himself. Instead of jumping on these band wagons, maybe it’s about time we trusted Sir Alex to have in his squad who he believes will get the job done. Carrick could very easily orchestrate a Championship winning performance at Arsenal this weekend, and then the Twitter world will have to find someone else to belittle. Until then, I’m sure he’s losing plenty of sleep over it…

If you want to make me the next person to angrily delete his Twitter account then follow me at www.twitter.com/@joino

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