Anderson | 2013/14 Performances (on loan at Fiorentina)
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Are you sure Nani was that much? Could've sworn it was much less.
Thing is, I don't think I ever saw Anderson playing for us and thought that he looked amazing. I heard the hype and saw the slick youtube vids, but for us I never saw anything special bar the odd good game. I think by around 2010/2011 I had started arguing with people on here who were saying he'd become world-class. I never understood why we paid such an enormous fee for the lad. Nani I could understand because we've seen that he actually does have bags and bags of talent and were it not for injuries and his own ineptitude as a footballer he could've been "world-class", but Anderson? Not really.
they were rumoured fees, we never actually disclosed them. Porto released actual fees a few years later themselves and it was definitely more than that. Anderson was €30m.
Nani was around the 25 million mark if I remember correctly. That could have been in euros though. It'd be around 17 million in pounds.
Indeed. I remember getting pretty indignant when @Will Absolute was banging that drum over the last couple of years but it's looking more and more as though he was right and I was wrong.
Looking at his career as whole, Fergie's eye for talent is almost beyond reproach. Looking at his record in the last 5-10 years, though, he's spent a lot of money on players that failed to live up to expectations. You can't help thinking all our recent success has been despite his big money signings, rather than because of them.
He's got one year left on his contract (expires next summer).
Can we loan him out again?
Transfermarkt has it as £22 for Nani and £ 27 million for Anderson.
In Euros 25.5 million for Nani and 31.5 million for Anderson
In Euros 25.5 million for Nani and 31.5 million for Anderson
These are the correct figures. I think you're using current exchange rates, rather than what they were at the time though.
Nani's fee worked out at Stg£17m when we signed him. Someone else can do the math to work out Anderson's fee at the time.
The exact same thing could be said for Anderson to be fair. He obviously has ability that someone like Cleverley will never have. He can see a pass, burst forward from midfield and to be fair even chipped in with a few goals last season and the season before. His passing is inconsistent and he can have a tendency to hide when things aren't going right though. That season where they both played in midfield for the first few games Anderson was much better than Cleverley for me but received less praise for some reason. He put in at least 10 great performances that season (for him a huge feat due to his constant missing of games) but then got injured again. It also hasn't helped that he is clearly someone who suits a 3 man midfield which we never really play.
Anderson broke his leg at 18, was good his first season here and showed a lot of promise but since then it has been long term injury after injury. Of course his apparent lack of work rate is also to blame but it was always going to be hard for him to develop when he has been a sick note since 18. Nani's injury problems are a recent thing and he had an injury free time as a young player to develop better.
Say what you will about Anderson but when you see his reaction to going off injured against Reading (incidentally a game he was bossing), you can see he does care and isn't just happy collecting a wage. Any good run of form has been cut off by injuries, it has to be frustrating for him. What we may be seeing now is the inevitable further decline of a player as the injury count catches up on him. I really think his career could be over in a couple of years if he can't stay fit. Surely his knees can't take much more.
Its such a shame as to what his career has turned in to. I absolutely loved him. When we signed him and Nani I still remember how excited I was and the early signs were there.
He's had enough chances now though and he isn't anywhere near the level that our club should aspire to. A part of me isn't ready to give up on Nani yet (Irrational, I know). Anderson should be on his way out of OT. Great character, great talen, but ultimately not one who would be remembered in the future.
He's had enough chances now though and he isn't anywhere near the level that our club should aspire to. A part of me isn't ready to give up on Nani yet (Irrational, I know). Anderson should be on his way out of OT. Great character, great talen, but ultimately not one who would be remembered in the future.
Well I think the whole point of me saying that regarding Nani is because I don't think the same thing could be said of Anderson, though I thought that was largely obvious. I've never seen anything from Anderson to suggest he was a €30m youngster, the raw talent or the "holy shit" factor you used to get from watching a Rooney or Ronaldo, or what I saw from Shaw this season to make me think he's worth that money, or Nani's crazy goals and skills despite him largely being inconsistent and silly when he joined. Anderson to me never looked overly special.
*queue someone looking up six year old threads where I did say those things
It's tempting to conclude that the Fiorentina stint was his last chance to make a decent career for himself. Now it all reeks of going back to Brazil to ply his trade in relative obscurity - if that, even. He may end up doing a Hargreaves in the end.
Well I think the whole point of me saying that regarding Nani is because I don't think the same thing could be said of Anderson, though I thought that was largely obvious. I've never seen anything from Anderson to suggest he was a €30m youngster, the raw talent or the "holy shit" factor you used to get from watching a Rooney or Ronaldo, or what I saw from Shaw this season to make me think he's worth that money, or Nani's crazy goals and skills despite him largely being inconsistent and silly when he joined. Anderson to me never looked overly special.
*queue someone looking up six year old threads where I did say those things
He never did look overly special for us. But then again he went from being a very talented and hyped up attacking midfielder to being used in a very different role - and therein lies much of it, I think. His progress stopped as he wasn't used in the role which - clearly, it now seems - suited him best.
Hindsight and all - but trying to make a central midfielder out of Ando simply didn't work out.
Fair enough, I've actually never seen anything of Nani that I didn't believe an more injury free Anderson played in the right system could have bettered (I like Nani as a player too), hence my post disagreeing with you. Not that it matters anymore of course because both of them are done here anyway.
When you look at Januzaj even, Anderson all those years ago doesn't hold a candle to him talent wise. I think that Ando is one of the rare 20-30m signings that you can say that SAF got it completely wrong. Veron and Berbatov are regarded as flops, but Anderson showed far less than them. Hell, even Young has shown more promise, in his first season particularly.
Well I think the whole point of me saying that regarding Nani is because I don't think the same thing could be said of Anderson, though I thought that was largely obvious. I've never seen anything from Anderson to suggest he was a €30m youngster, the raw talent or the "holy shit" factor you used to get from watching a Rooney or Ronaldo, or what I saw from Shaw this season to make me think he's worth that money, or Nani's crazy goals and skills despite him largely being inconsistent and silly when he joined. Anderson to me never looked overly special.
*queue someone looking up six year old threads where I did say those things
The big difference between the two of them was that Nani achieved and maintained a really top level of performance for a whole season. Arguably 18 months. Anderson never came close to managing the same.
You can blame injuries for Anderson's inconsistency but he was also blatantly a level or two below the fitness you would from a professional athlete. Which, in turn, made him more likely to get injured and slower to recover each time he hurt himself.
They've both been poor signings, with hindsight. Like I said, we paid top dollar for the pair of them so they could develop into the natural heirs for Giggs and Scholes. They're so far below the quality of the players they're supposed to replace it's depressing. Even in their mid to late 30s we were seeing better performances from the old codgers than we were seeing from the heirs to their throne(s)
Trying to deploy him as an AM would have turned out even worse. He has little to no attributes to succeed in that position.
That used to be my belief but then ... he looked a bit shit as an attacking midfielder too, as in, the elements of your game that you need to excel at in that area are shooting, passing, creativity etc, did we ever see much of that from him at all? I think that theory is largely a myth at this stage and wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference because I don't think his failings here were as a result of where we played him.
€30m back then for Anderson is basically comparable to the Hazard and Gotze fees of nowadays and he never looked anything remotely close to them in terms of ability
For what it's worth, transferleague.com has them at £15m for Anderson and £13.5m for Nani. (Although we do know that they underestimated our spending by more than £40m over the 2007-9 period.)
Aye and people keep forgetting that he started off his United career playing in an advanced role (where he was not very good at all). It was only when we started playing him deeper that he put in a few good performances.
Well, I guess that depends on how we define AM. He was a much more attacking player for Porto than he became for us. At the time people were comparing him to Ronaldinho - which was ridiculous, of course, but it says something about what kind of role he played. I've never rated him very highly as any kind of midfielder to be honest - he seems to lack something basic in terms of positioning and, let's say, tactical awareness.
At any rate he would've fared better as the more offensive player in a midfield three than as a CM - or even a DM of sorts, which Fergie seemingly tried to transform him into. Deep lying playmaker of the late Scholes school? I think it was something like that he had in mind. And that was never going to happen.
Yes that's certainly part of it, but what I'm getting at here is that when we signed Nani, whilst he was largely poor and inconsistent in his first few years, there were plenty of moments and games from him amidst it that made me realize why we paid such a huge fee, because you could see the blindingly obvious talent he had. Obviously he turned out to be a bit of a shit signing in the end too but at least with him you can see why we paid that money.
On the other end, I've never seen why he paid so much for Anderson, what was so special about him that made us do it. As I've already said, he didn't seem to have that magic that top youngsters exude (just look at Januzaj, Sterling, and Shaw this season in contrast), and despite him supposedly being an AM at Porto, he was pretty rubbish at most things that great AM's are supposed to not be rubbish at and actually mostly played good when we moved him deeper and told him to put less emphasis on the creative and technical aspect of his game and more on the aggressive and physical aspect, which makes me think that the theories that we were the ones who ruined his career by not playing him in his right position are just lazy ones for the failings of a player that so many had such high hopes for.
The two sets of figures seem a bit extreme both ways. I remember at the time it was described as about 30m overall for the two of them, but since then the generally accepted figures have been 20m for Anderson and 17m for Nani.
Yeah, SAF bizarrely did seem to have an image of Ando being a player that can dictate games. To be fair, there were a few games that he did look like he possessed that kind of ability against small teams that sat back from us. However, it was still a very long shot.
Yes - I suppose Ando was in something like the Hazard bracket back then. But you're quite right - he hadn't shown anything like what Hazard had on a consistent basis at the time of the purchase. It was a punt in that sense - a much bigger punt than Hazard was when he left the French league (he was a couple of years older, be it said).
And then the punt was followed by a gamble - which was Fergie trying to remould the lad into something he seemingly had no prerequisites for becoming. It's all a bit puzzling looking back at it.
Yes, Fergie's made a lot of terrible signings in the last decade but Anderson surely takes the biscuit. My god, it annoys me to even think of him, he's such a lazy fat shit.
Well he was sort off right from time to time so perhaps not that bizarre, we trashed Arsenal 8-2 and Spurs 5-1 or something with Anderson and Cleverly as central midfielders, Rooney playing on top of that.
Remember Ando getting fit last season, scoring in the league cup against Newcastle, looked like he was really getting into form after his injury years. We beat Chelsea in the league and three days later had to play them in the League Cup at Stamford bridge, Chelsea played with their strongest squad, we played with Keane at CB I believe. Anderson completely dominated that game in a more forward role, giving 3 assists within 60 minutes or so. Ferguson used him in a more attacking role then, so that might have always been the plan if he wouldn't have struggled with injuries so much.
Obligatory youtube vid:
He came to us as a 19 year old, started 25 and 29 games in his first two seasons with the European champions and never looked the least bit out of place. He was also excellent through our strong start to the 2011/12 season, although it was clear that his knee deteriorated towards the end of the run. Suggesting that he was never any good is ridiculous - he was. There's no doubt that injuries and loss of confidence have reduced him to a shadow of what he was and could have been, but we owe him a debt - particularly for covering for Scholes so well during his vision problems in 2007/08. (And that's without mentioning his penalty that was crucial in the CL final win.)
I ... didn't suggest that? Do you want to read my post again and then get back to me or .. ?
Owe him a debt? I'd say he owes us €30m + wages, personally.
He was never the most technically adept player but there was definitely something about him. His best attribute was "attacking the space" (c) Boss 2008 and, for all his sins, you could certainly argue that he's been a feature of some of our best team performances over the last few years.
For about 60 minutes or so of each game, anyway. His ability to pick the ball up deep and drive deep into the opposition half is a rare one in CMs and something that improves us massively when we have it in our locker.
I agree, I have never seen much from him in a United shirt to suggest that we had a superstar on our hands. Even during that first season, his highlights against good opposition didn't stand up to much scrutiny. For example, he got kudos for squaring up to Gerrard at Anfield but that overlooks the fact that we were largely overrun in midfield that day. Otherwise we are left we are few tricks (vs Arsenal) and YouTube clips from his pre-United career. Poor at shooting, poor at passing and with woeful stamina. He could drive past his marker occasionally (in the first 50 minutes) but you need a lot more to succeed at this level.
Have to kind of blame Fergie at least a little. He wasn't and never will be a central midfielder. We don't expect players like Ozil and Ronaldinho to be careening about the pitch for 90 minutes closing down players etc, but because he was too stubborn to sign an actual central midfielder (ok, Hargreaves) Ando was played out of position more or less his whole United career.
He should have been used similar to Kagawa, not a replacement for Scholes. It was a waste of his talent.
That said, nothing excuses his fitness record after that.
He should have been used similar to Kagawa, not a replacement for Scholes. It was a waste of his talent.
That said, nothing excuses his fitness record after that.
He did have qualities which is great to see in a midfielder - no question about it. The problem for me, however, is that it always seemed almost random whether he was in the right place at the right time when he was off the ball. He never seemed to grasp the role he was playing, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, he had the positional sense of a virgin in a porn shoot.
I think it's a little unfair to compare them to Giggs and Scholes. We're talking about two of the best players in our history. The media branded them as their replacements but I don't really think we should view them as such, they were just two excellent young players signed coincidentally with Giggs and Scholes ageing. I've always found this natural heir concept a bit strange as there aren't many examples of that happening at top clubs around Europe. Players don't get replaced individually, rather the team evolves and moves onto something else without direct equivalents.
They both cost a lot regardless of what figure we're deciding on, but with the vast amounts of money coming into the club and the success we had with them as key players I'm not really sure both can be viewed as poor signings. There's a tendency to look at players that peak early or don't fulfil their potential as failures, but I don't think that's always the case.
Anderson could certainly be described as a poor one given his injury record and current redundancy despite being only 26. But his talent was obvious from day one and despite his injuries and slow recovery time, for a few years most of us had him firmly in our minds when looking at the side in the future. I completely agree with your assessment of his fitness and in the last year or two he seems to have completely lost his motivation and as a result hasn't really got close to his top form. In his first season he was playing and impressing regularly at the age of 19 for the best club in world football, so on the talent side of things I'm not sure we can fault the scouting team much. I always look on that one with regret because we should be looking at a player in his prime but he's such a poor player now that he has absolutely no use at the club. Having said that though he played a part in arguably our best ever team and I find it hard to view him as a total failure.
Nani on the other hand, like you say, is a very different case entirely. Like Anderson he peaked early and his best years are clearly behind him, but I actually think he goes down as a decent signing. He never reached the level of consistency you associate with the top players but for four or five seasons he was a one of the most dangerous attacking players in Europe and was our Player of the Year and nominated for the Ballon d'Or in one of them. Even during his spells of infuriating consistency he was regularly scoring and assisting for a the title winners.
We've been so spoilt with top players having long careers at the club that we expect them all to follow a similar career path - from promising youngster to key player to useful veteran - Giggs and Scholes are the absolute epitome of that. We've also had the likes of Rio and Rooney come in and be consistently world class, so it's only them and real bargains like Evra and Vidic who get seen as good signings. Transfer fees in the 90s aren't comparable to those in the last few years so ignoring that and focusing only on contribution, look at the likes of Sharpe and Kanchelskis. They've both gone down as brilliant players for United and they both had good careers, but their usefulness was largely exhausted by the age of 25 or 26 and they were moved on, producing little elsewhere. Whether it be an issue of injuries, attitude or just an early peak, that sort of thing is quite common at the highest level and I don't think we can write such players off as failures. For me, at least, Nani falls right into that category.
Those performances from the start of 2011-2012 have been overhyped for both Anderson and Cleverley. Both Arsenal and Tottenham were in disarray, and the performance against Spurs was fairly average for about 60 minutes. Just to put it into perspective, can you imagine being in a position of trying to defend Scholes or Beckham (or even Butt) because they had a handful of good games three years ago (at a time of the season which is notoriously unreliable in terms of drawing conclusions)?
What has Anderson ever shown, for United or anyone else, that merits comparisons with Ronaldinho or Ozil?
I know he was hyped as the next Ronaldinho (presumably entirely on the basis that he was black, Brazilian, played for Gremio and had long hair) but he's never looked close to having the same sort of qualities that they bring to the table. Couldn't shoot worth a bollix and his weight of pass was woefully inconsistent. You couldn't imagine a player less suited to being the creative hub of a football team if you tried.
Nice line but total cr@p. He had no trouble positionally playing with Carrick or Scholes (or Hargreaves in 2007/08). (Playing with Fletcher was always going to be more of a problem, but it wasn't just Anderson who had that problem.) Like Evra or Rafael he could be caught upfield after one of his explosive bursts, but if you want a player to make attacking runs you accept that you have to be organised to cover for them.
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