They received wisdom is that, with his retirement, Manchester United needs to find a long term replacement with midfielder Paul Scholes.

There’s little doubt that Paul Scholes was the best passer of the ball that England has produced in the last twenty years (you could make an argument for Paul Gasgoigne, but he self destructed too much). And no that he’s gone, the team needs replace. And yes, it would be nice. The manage, Sir Alex Ferguson (SAF) likes to play with a central midfield pairing of sometimes described as a passer and runner. In other words, a player whose job it is to maintain possession, pick out the occasional spectacular pass, and also make the decisions that shape how a particular attack or counterattack will develop. A sort of midfield general. The runner is the water carrier, in this scenario, with the passer staying pretty close to the center circle and the runner both chasing after opponents and also running forward to provide and outlet for the passer.

Barcelona do this. Xavi Hernandez is the passer and Andres Iniesta is the runner. But behind them is Sergio Busquets, the destroyer (actually, he’s not a classic destroyer, delivering crunching tackles, but his job is to screen the defense and use his positioning from a deeper position than Xavi and Iniesta to intercept opposition passes and generally break up opposition attacks).

SAF doesn’t have any midfielder behind his duo.

In his defense, he does take his central pairing with more defensive duties than Xavi and Iniesta are given. And he usually plays a 4-4-2, but with striker Wayne Rooney dropping deep into the midfield to help add a third body to the ‘passer and runner’ pairing.

But looking at recent games, it’s simply not enough.

Manchester United don’t necessarily need more creativity. Rooney is very creative in his free role as an attacker, roaming wherever he sees space to pick holes in the opposition. Their wing players are loaded with attacking talent. Antonio Valencia, despite being from Ecuador, is a classic English style winger, using pace and direct running to get down the right side and place accurate crosses into the box and cutting inside and taking shots just often enough to keep defenders honest. Ashley Young provides a similar role on the other side, but with more variety and greater goal scoring threat. And Nani, who can play on either wing, is the kind of unpredictable (and admittedly erratic) and hugely talented player that defenders hate because you can never be sure what he’ll do.

In the center of midfield, they have a clever passer in the still inexperienced Tom Cleverely (who may grow into the next Scholes); possession oriented, deep lying playmaker in Michael Carrick; they have forward driving, box to box midfielder in Anderson (whose creativity in underestimated); and they have the grit, energy of Darren Fletcher, who will harry the opposition attackers for the full ninety minutes.

What they don’t have and who they have never replaced is the great Roy Keane. He was a devastating tackler (sometimes too devastating; a lot of red cards in that career), but also a smart, tactical player who understood the best way to interrupt opposing attackers goes beyond just hassling the guy with the ball.

Too many teams are ripping through Manchester United’s midfield and getting into goal scoring positions. They’ve given up more shots from distance than any other team in England’s top flight – which suggests that no one is properly screening that no man’s land between the center of the field and the defense.

With so much attacking creativity in the wide positions and in Wayne Rooney, what the team needs is a platform to let those players focus on using that creativity, knowing that someone back there is covering for them.

They need to play a holder and runner. A holder, as in a holding midfielder to halt opposition attacks through a combination of possession (the opposition can’t attack if they don’t have the ball), but also interception (positioning) and tackling. A runner who will help out with the tackling and harrying, but who will also burst forward into the opposition box and lend a hand in the attack.

If they want a plain old destroyer, Lassana Diarra at Real Madrid could well be available. Lass, as he’s called, has experience in England and would provide a steady base for the rest of the team to build from. For a little more culture, another Real Madrid player, the Argentine Fernando Gago could be had. He’s less of a hard man and more of a tactical player, but that’s not a bad thing. Both would resolve Manchester United’s needs and both a quality players who are surplus to requirements at Real Madrid.

For more money, someone like Yann M’Vila at the French club Rennes could be had. He’s young, devastating in the tackle, but also with a great tactical mind and good passing skills. Expensive, but well worth it.

But for heaven’s sake, when the transfer window opens in January, pick up someone. Even if it’s an older player, intended just to fill a need for six months or so until a long term replacement can be found in the off season.

Take a look at this video of Pele’s top twenty goals.

What stands out? Is that Samba magic, like Ronaldinho juggling the ball and teasing the defenders. Not really. His runs from the halfway line down to the goal, dancing effortlessly pass opposing defenders like he was Mikhail Barishnikov? Not so much. What about devastating speed? Not that either.

These things happened, but it’s not what stands out.

You could even argue that Pele was very different from the Platonic ideal of the Brazilian footballer.

Firstly, he was known at his peak as the best header of the ball alive and thrived off his teammates launching balls into the air in front of the goal, rather than them delicately slipping past defenders to feed him the ball.

Part and parcel of that was that he was a power player. He does jink past defenders in tight areas, but his moves are efficient rather than flashy. No step-overs for him. When a defender does get on him he uses his physical strength to hold them off and stay on his feet. Most importantly, he goes direct for goal.

You could say he’s a classic poacher, haunting the eighteen yard box for a ball to latch on to. When he finds such a ball, he was absolutely clinical with the finish. Which is also why he also put away a lot of rebounds, because he always stayed as close as he could to the goal.

Even his long distance strikes are poacher’s goals. What do I mean? That he’s not taking speculative shots. He sees that a opposing defender is screening him from the goalie, so that the goalie won’t be able to clearly see him take the shot. He also sees the open space in the goal. He’s not trying for the spectacular, he’s just always looking for the smallest opening to strike.

Time for a little soccer digression. The season in Europe has started again and players union strikes in Italy and Spain appear to have been averted.

I root for my home teams – which means I root for DC United in MLS. I don’t have a ‘home’ team in the European leagues, but I do have my preferences.

Inter Milan is not one of them (if you’re curious, I tend to root for Juventus and AS Roma). But I am finding it sad how, since Jose Mourinho left his position there to manage Real Madrid, they keep on hiring new managers who move quickly to mess up a system that was previously working.

Under Mourinho, they played a 4-2-1-3. The ‘1’ was their playmaker and offensive engine, Wesley Sneijder.

When you play with three forwards up front, two of them play as wingers, staying wide and attacking either cutting towards the middle from wide positions or by playing the ball to the central striker from out wide. Mourinho used to strikers who were used to playing centrally in those winger positions, rather than true wide players. This could have been a disaster, but what he did was take away the traditional defensive responsibilities of a winger. Instead of asking them to track back a help out in defense, he tasked them with defending from the front by staying close to the opposition fullbacks, preventing them from joining the attack and keeping Inter’s defensive players from getting overwhelmed by numbers.

After he left, new coach Rafa Benitez immediately demanded that his two wide forwards track back to defend and also made Sneijder play a deeper role.

The result was not only three players playing roles they were ill-suited to play, but their striker left isolated, because the wingers were too far away because they were asked to run back and defend and because the playmaker was pushed back from his place as the link between the midfield and the attack.

So, they stunk.

Rafa was dumped and they started playing formations that, while less tactically innovative than Mourinho’s, kept folks in their comfort zone.

So, now they have brought in Gasperini who likes to play 3-4-3, completely upsetting the balance that been grudgingly achieved as the Rafa disaster.

Their defenders are too slow to play in a three man back lines, the wingbacks (the two outside players in the ‘4’ – you could also call them outside midfielders) are too old manage the physical demands of covering almost the entire sideline alone.

Oh, and there is no room for their offensive engine, Sneijder in this formation, unless he plays centrally, in the ‘4,’ in which case he is asked to defend too much (which his not suited to do, which means his partner in the middle winds up having to do it all, leaving the midfield easy for the opposition to overrun). He can also play wide in the ‘3’ but that is also a complete waste of his talents.

Mourinho had his favored formations, yes. But he also recognized that you must build a game plan based on the players you have and their talents. You can stretch them, adjusting their roles and making them try new things, but you can’t make them do things that they are either totally unsuited to do or that make no use of their true talents. Which is exactly what is happening now.

Fine. Go ahead and screw this up, Inter. I’m rooting for someone else anyway.