Tom Cleverley: 5 Areas He Must Improve to Become a Key Player for Man United

Tom Cleverley is on the verge of becoming a key player for Manchester United and England. 

Sir Alex Ferguson has progressively evolved United's playing style to one which is based on pace, technical skill, fluid movement and interchange. There will be no compromise on the tradition of attractive, attacking football.

Barcelona are the modern football team that many may try to emulate. Brendan Rodgers is seeking to evolve Liverpool into the type of team that Swansea became: greedy in possession; hungry to win the ball back.

Tom Cleverley is a "modern footballer" like Joe Allen, who Rodgers has just bought.

The thing is that at the end of all that you still have to put the ball in the back of the net. For all the tactical genius and expertise of Barcelona's six midfielders, there is one skill that you can't teach at the Nou Camp. And that is Lionel Messi's sheer genius at finding ways to score goals in tight situations.

The Everton match on Monday showed exactly this point. When you come up against a team with huge energy and excellent organisation and then they score and park the bus, you need to engineer goals.

United now have the players to do just that. They will need some playing time together. It is absolutely right that Sir Alex will continue his policy of squad rotation. Not so much to keep top players happy; much more to do with learning each other's optimum playing styles and creating the intuitive play that is the hallmark of champions.

This is one area where Cleverley can still improve, as we shall discuss shortly. Another is in goal-scoring.

It was much easier when Ruud Van Nistelrooy or Cristiano Ronaldo were around. They were goal machines. Add in Wayne Rooney and you've got the basis of a title-winning side. 

One of the hallmarks of United in recent years is that goals have come from all over the park. That's OK up to a point. Last season 18 different players scored, but only one (Wayne Rooney with 34) scored more than 12. The season before there were 20 and before that 18 again.

Now that's all well and good, but here's the thing.

In 2009/10, 34 goals came from midfield, not including wingers; in 2010/11, this fell to 22; and in 2011/12, it fell further to 17. And that includes Ryan Giggs.

That simply isn't good enough to win back the title. 

With the recent signings, United now have the capability to score 100 goals in a season, especially if players remain fresh and injury-free helped by rotation.

It's all very well saying Michael Carrick should score more, but he's the deep lying playmaker. Kagawa can surely be relied on to score 15, but it's Cleverley and Anderson who are going to have to step up their productivity.

There is no doubt that Cleverley has the ability, and he will be given the playing time he was denied by injury last year. He can become a pivotal player for England and United.

In fact, now I come to think of it, and the analysis will imply, he could become the new Roy Keane in time. He has the ability and the potential and what this article is about is his all-round game. That is what above all will make him a key player for Manchester United.

Physical Strength

I lived in Bradford for 25 years and had the misfortune to be at the Bradford City Fire Disaster.

Being a lifelong United supporter, it was no surprise then that I noticed that they had signed an 11-year-old from Bradford City. "Must be good" I thought.

I waited and watched MUTV for six years before finally seeing Tom make his debut for the Academy at 16. Two things immediately crossed my mind: how frail he looked, but how talented he was.

Since then, I have seen many comparisons with David Beckham. This was a young lad who, despite being born in the South, always wanted to play for Manchester United. When you watch the footage of him on the Kenya Tour as a young lad, looking like a boy, meeting his childhood hero Sir Bobby Charlton, you can see Manchester United and a determination to succeed shining through his eyes.

Few of us can understand what it must be like to be so diminutive that people think you are too small to make it. Ryan Giggs was similar, but he had dazzling talent at a young age. In Tom Cleverley's case, his coaches recognised that he had a fierce determination and they decided to take a gamble.

Cleverley was smaller than his peers as a 15-year-old, both in stature and physique. Eighteen months ago, he was still only 5'9"; but Paul Scholes, Eden Hazard, Shinji Kagawa and Lionel Messi are all 5'7" inches.

So height doesn't have to be a disadvantage, but to compensate you need physical stature. Look at Jesse Lingard, for example. His coaches must have told him last year that he would not make it unless he bulked up. He looked like a leaf could blow him over. Now he's taller at 6' and 74 kilos.

Cleverley is taller and heavier this season at 5'10" and 73 kilos. What he needs to do is more gym work, to build up his torso and his thigh strength.

Linford Christie would never have won the gold medal in Barcelona if he hadn't massively increased his upper body strength. He realised that to be a top sprinter you need arm and chest strength as well as leg strength. Nowadays we talk about "core strength".

Shorter men can also compensate with great leg strength, especially the thighs. Duncan Edwards' thighs were described as being like tree trunks.

Look at Carlos Tevez or Sergio Aguero. They get their explosive speed off the mark and their ability to ride and resist tackles from their overall strength, especially their thighs. This is what Cleverley now needs, because he can still be bounced off the ball or out of tackles.

However, not many people may realise that he started as a left back and played in that position until well into his reserves experience. He can tackle, but he doesn't use or practice that enough. If he did, he can do all that Keane did.

Look Around More; Get Your Head Up

People keep asking, "How United can replace Paul Scholes?"

They won't do that with just one player, but the two things most people recall about Scholes are his phenomenal passing range and his thunderbolt goals.

In some ways Cleverley resembles a younger Paul Scholes. He is a human dynamo in the last third of the field, buzzing around, making short passes, finding space, slipping in a colleague. 

But Scholes could score great goals out of the blue. Now he plays a much more deep-lying role, as we saw against Everton. Why? Because he can't go box to box anymore; and Ferguson wants the conductor of his orchestra in that deeper position with the buzz-flies up top.

Michael Carrick gets a bad press from people who don't understand his game. You will, on the other hand, find countless professionals and ex-professionals who rate him very highly---including Sir Alex Ferguson.

We'll come back to passing range later. Cleverley may get to play as a deep-lying playmaker later in his career, but will usually be further up the pitch.

The point we are making here is the need for Cleverley to get his head up more and to look around before he receives a pass. The reasons are: so as not to lose possession immediately to someone you haven't noticed; but also to be able to make the immediate best pass out of trouble or to create an opening.

Cleverley has good awareness of those close to him, and, if he has time and space, can look up to see a longer pass.

You will see in a later video that Scholes occasionally looks before receiving a pass and can have an uncanny awareness and laser-like precision for hitting a colleague from distance.

But the pass master is Carrick. Watch every time he receives the ball. He is looking all the time anyhow, sizing up options and needs, constantly moving into the best position.

As someone is passing to him, he is already looking left and right. He is virtually never intercepted or caught out, but he makes great interceptions himself. He always has time, as he showed at centre-back against Everton most of the time, even under pressure.

As he is receiving the ball, he already knows what his range of options is, from a square pass if there are none, to a long raking pass or defence splitter.

Cleverley can learn much from playing and training alongside Carrick and Scholes. He is effervescent, but as he matures, his all-round game will improve also.

Passing Range

Paul Scholes is the pass master.

I once heard on MUTV that in training he would amuse himself by hitting telegraph poles at distance or he would try to knock the water bottle out of the coach's hand on the touchline.

The thing is, he has always been that good at passing. He didn't get better and better at the long pass as he got older and played deeper.

If you look at the video, you will see him hitting raking diagonal or sideways passes, as well as long forward passes. Like Michael Carrick, he can hit the perfect "drop shot" pass over the defence and in front of the likes of Chicharito, Welbeck or Rooney to run onto.

His short passing is precise also, but he will hit chips, lobs and fizz passes into the feet of Berbatov, for example.

Cleverley is reliable at hitting short, simple passes and can do the other things, but he needs to improve his range, including both distance and type of pass.

Then he can be truly great.

Keep Moving Forward

I've said it before. Shinji Kagawa can become a legend at Manchester United. He is already what Cleverley needs to aspire to.

Both are intelligent technical players who have taken their basic ability and worked very hard.

But here's the thing. Both are 23....

Now you see what Cleverley still has to do.

One of the things he can do is to keep moving forwards. He works very hard, makes a pass and is good at finding space. But if you watch this video on YouTube of him playing against Tottenham, for example, he sometimes makes a pass and stops, or even goes backwards.

Is he having a breather, or is he buying thinking time? What he needs to do is play on instinct all the time. That takes playing time at the very top and he will get that this season. But unless he steps up his game to the next level, he won't get that playing time.

Why? Because Anderson is coming back and he carries the technical ability that Brazilians seem to be born with. He has become much stronger at United, has learned to tackle and is now hungry to catch up on lost time and make a first team place his own.

And watch out for Nick Powell. When Sir Alex first bought him, he probably planned to send him out on loan. But he has grown very fast and has not looked out of place against senior players. He has great shooting ability, can pass and looks like Michael Carrick's replacement in the longer term.

So there is plenty of competition for those midfield places.

Cleverley should watch what Kagawa does. OK, some of you will say they are playing different positions: one in the hole and the other as attacking midfield. But that isn't Fergie's plan. He wants interchange.

During the pre-season tour, Kagawa played in central midfield as well as at No.10 and didn't look at all out of place.

But even in the latter, his more accustomed role, he showed himself (like Carlos Tevez for City, and Wayne Rooney), prepared to come very deep to help out or to get hold of the ball. 

He then typically plays "get, give, move" with the players around him. Constantly on the move. Constantly going forward.

Just watch the video of him at Dortmund, above.

Goal Scoring

Tom Cleverley can score goals. Just go back and watch the videos of him in the Reserves or the Academy. He can chip, bend, side-foot, but he doesn't often blast the ball as he should have done against Everton, rather than trying to place it. Then United might have got a result.

In fact, the video above just about sums it up. Plenty of skills, not enough goals. In fact he still hasn't scored for United in competitive play.

That just won't do. United need more goals from midfield and Cleverley will need to score more to keep his place. Anderson hit a cracking shot against Everton, and if he starts to score he can cement the second midfield role alongside Carrick.

Put your foot through the ball, Tom!