PLAYER PROFILE

Paul Scholes

Position: Midfield

Height: 5'7

Weight: 11st 9lbs

Date of Birth: 1974-11-16 Salford, England

Paul Scholes

Another member of the Old Trafford "500 Club", Paul Scholes has long been a huge favourite of the Manchester United fans.

Scholes has spent his entire career at Old Trafford. He was a part of the impressive United Youth Team of the early 1990s alongside the likes of Gary Neville, David Beckham and Nicky Butt.

He made his full league debut for Manchester United against Ipswich Town in September 1994 and scored twice in a 3-2 defeat. For the next two seasons Scholes often found himself an understudy to Eric Cantona but still managed to make several appearances for the club and established himself as a goal-scoring midfielder with an excellent passing ability.

After Cantona's departure Scholes began to establish himself as a United regular and formed a formidable partnership with Roya Keane at the heart of the United midfield. He played a huge role in United's treble success of 1999, scoring vitals goals in both domestic and European matches. He scored in the 2-0 FA Cup Final victor over Arsenal but had to sit-out the dramatic 2-1 victory over Bayern Munich in the Champions League final through suspension after picking up a booking in the semi-final win over Juventus.

Since then Scholes has gone on to establish himself as one of the best English midfielders of his generation, scoring vital goals for both club and country. He ended his international career after Euro 2004, stating that he wanted to concentrate on club football. Many pundits doubted this and blamed England boss Sven Goran Eriksson for Scholes decision after constantly playing him out of position on the left hand side of midfield.

His impressive start to the 2005/2006 season was brought to an end when an unspecific eye injury kept him out with blurred vision for the second half of the campaign. There were fears that Scholes career may be in the balance but he was declared fit again for the new season.

Scholes is a die-hard Oldham Athletic fan and cheekily cited Latics legend Andy Ritchie when asked who his all-time footballing hero was by foreign journalists at the World Cup in 2002. He has often hinted that he would like to play for the club before he ends his career.

So far in his Manchester United career, Scholes has won seven Premiership titles, three FA Cups, the European Cup and the Intercontinental Cup. He made his 500th appearance for United on 22 October 2006, scoring the opening goal in a 2-0 Premiership win over Liverpool at Old Trafford.

2006/07 was a great season all round for Scholes as he not only showed that he hadn't lost any of his ability with the eye problems, but was actually playing some of the best football of his career, scoring spectacular goals and dominating games in a way that he hadn't done for a good few seasons.