You’re choice of Sneijder is interesting, he reportedly turned down two English teams to sign for Inter, more than likely Man U were one of them. That is according to the delightful Italian press, only slightly more reliable than our own. Truth in the rumour or not, he probably wouldn’t have played as well as Giggs has this season anyway – 9 assists in 13 games, and far more importantly the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award to hold while he combs his chest hair.

Also, while I have seen the good side of Sneijder, I haven’t been impressed with him so far this season at Inter. He has scored a couple of goals but consistently shoots on sight inspite of better options, perhaps there is a language issue or perhaps he is trying too hard to impress – he did get sent off last weekend – either way he appears wayward.

I was surprised no other English clubs went after Elano, such a talented player with superb and incisive distribution, and usefully already tested in the Premier League. He is exactly the sort of player you could pair with a destroyer and have the best of both worlds. After all, he only fell out with Mark Hughes, better men have fared worse on that score. Others in that position – ball playing midfielders rather than Mark Hughes’ antagonists – I like are Danny Murphy (brilliant and appallingly underrated), Arteta, Modric, Banega, Marin, Xaviesta (good luck). What do you make of Raul Garcia at Atletico?

@William – there’s two problems I see with Michael Carrick. The first is that he isn’t really a defensive or an attacking midfielder, the best description I can find of him is a deep lying midfielder, like Pirlo. Unfortunately his creativity is nowhere near the standards of Pirlo and although he’s a tidy player I don’t think there is anything exceptional about him. The second is I’ve never seen Carrick take a game by a the scruff of the neck. For me that an essential for a centre midfielder and Carrick is too reserved for my liking. To answer your question, I don’t see Carrick in the long term at Man Utd but I imagine Ferguson has other plans and who am I to question Ferguson?

@Ben I’ve left this comment until after the Villa game – it’s weird but I’m always better at predicting after the game rather than before . No, seriously. The game at the weekend illustrated, once again, Man Utd’s lack of creativity and link up play in the middle of midfield. It lacked an orchestrator to guide them through a game against a well organised team

It was the first half where Villa took the lead, but the second where they won the game. Had a proper right back been playing at right back Ashley Young may have not got his cross in and had Darren Fletcher been playing centre midfield there may not have been the big gaps ahead of the Manchester United defence. It’s all ifs and buts but when Fletcher has played alongside another two midfielders such as Anderson and Scholes we’ve normally looked competitive. I think the first battle of a Premiership game is to win the midfield battle, I dont think many would beat Fletcher and Hargreaves in there, but it’s also important to have a mix for when the ball is won back you can (counter) attack effectively.