Manchester United's midfield will suffer in the absence of Fellaini and Carrick

Marouane Fellaini

Manchester United travel to Germany for their fifth Champions League group stage game of this season and it is a hugely important one. Win, and they’ll be through, potentially as group winners. Lose though, and they’ll be up against it in their final group game, they could even slip to third place in the group.

Clearly David Moyes’ side has to avoid defeat and win if they can. Their cause won’t be helped by the absence of Robin van Persie. Moyes has said that his striker’s injury “isn’t long-term” and he could end up featuring in Germany.

The other problem for Moyes is the continuing struggle of his central midfielders. This isn’t necessarily a new problem, the last few years of Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign contained well documented issues with that position. Moyes tried to solve the problem by bringing in Marouane Fellaini from his old club Everton but the Belgian has looked uncomfortable and out of place so far.

In his final year at Everton he was used much higher up the pitch but at United he’s been asked to adopt a more defensive role, one that he hasn’t played for a while. He’s been allowed to press on at times but not in the same vein as before under Moyes. His struggles won’t be under the spotlight again though, suspension rules him out of this match.

Michael Carrick, one of United’s best players last season, will also miss this match through injury, so Tom Cleverley’s partner will be one of Ryan Giggs, Anderson or Phil Jones. Before we look at those three let’s look at Cleverley’s case for starting, which is pretty weak as it is.

Heralded as one of the brightest young English talents, Cleverley shone during a loan spell at Wigan a few years ago and initially sparked on his return to Old Trafford. Recently he’s stalled somewhat and on Sunday against Cardiff he was extremely suspect. His passing (77% accuracy) was wayward and one misplaced pass resulted in Frazier Campbell hitting the bar. He looked out of place and ended up recording a performance score of -30, a dreadful return for a Manchester United player.

There is a feeling that Cleverley has been riding on his status as a Manchester United player for too long now and he isn’t helped by the ambiguity over his position. He isn’t suited to a central midfield role, he’s probably better playing off the striker but Wayne Rooney currently occupies that position, and that isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Ryan Giggs played some very intelligent passes when he came on against Cardiff and as he approaches his 40th birthday he’s spoken about wanting to reach 1000 games for United. Whether or not he could do a job in a game of this importance remains to be seen. The same would probably go for Anderson, a player who has done nothing but disappoint since joining United. Therefore it looks like if Phil Jones can recover in time it will be he who starts, probably a wise choice.

The main problem for whoever plays in the United midfield is that they will often find themselves outnumbered. Leverkusen play with three central midfielders, probablyLars Bender, Simon Rolfes and Gonzalo Castro and they may well completely swamp the United pairing. The alternative for Moyes is to play Rooney up front by himself and throw an extra player in but that could leave them isolated. Rooney likes to drift and having a focal striker in front of him gives United more direction.

Leverkusen come into this game in good form and, thanks to Dortmund’s loss in the Der Klassiker, are second in the Bundesliga. They know a win will go a long way to securing qualification and in front of their fans they’ll be giving it everything. If Moyes makes the wrong selection before the game he could find his team hopelessly outnumbered in the middle of the park regardless of if they play two or three central midfielders.