http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/jan/13/liverpool-manchester-united-michael-carrick

Michael Carrick, meanwhile, played with the kind of refinement that must have reminded the watching Roy Hodgson that surely he should have tried to get him back into the England team before, rather than after, Euro 2012.

The number-crunchers at Opta say the Premier League is 20% faster than five years ago. It's fast, frenetic and doesn't let up, and it takes a special player to see the right pass at this level and have the ability, almost every time, to play it with the perfect weight. Carrick, so long an elegant frustration, has taken a long time getting to the stage where he is controlling matches from his position in midfield but what a damning indictment it is of English football that someone of this calibre has started only 16 England games in 12 years.