In the first half the Stoke players kept mysteriously falling over when they got close to him. He's that good.
Luis Nani | 2011/12 Performances
- Thread starter Kelvin
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I know its premature but I added him to my favourite player list...
true but for about 12 months end of one season into the begining of last he was.
True, Wayne was affected by the off field drama but he was still assisting and delivering beautiful passes left right and centre.
When everything cooled down, we saw the real Wayne and he's simply a level above Nani imo.
When everything cooled down, we saw the real Wayne and he's simply a level above Nani imo.
I know its premature but I added him to my favourite player list...
That is a tad premature you're right
I actually heard one commentator on Sky doing the Stoke game call Nani a world class player after probably 2 years of brilliant form it's about time he started getting that kind of recognition. Maybe if he keeps it up he'll actually win the Player of the Year award like he should have last season!!
I was going to write a piece on here how I used to doubt Nani. Couldn't be fecked and I'm dettered by the criticism of late.
But Nani, I believe had this injury in 2009. Mixed reports came out from that. Nani alluded to Sir Alex making him work on his game and official reports I believe had him as injured.
I believe he came back into the fold againt Hull at Old Trafford when he was like a new player. All of the decision making was on point. He wasn't dwelling on the ball, he was passing when it needed to be passed and he was looking like a new Nani. He was using his speed to his advantage to initiate counter attacks instead of being ponderous when there's acres of space to run with the ball at top speed.
but it was pre-mature..I wanted to see how long this new Nani could last. Then came his game at the Emirates where he truly announced himself saying 'I'm finally here now.'
and the rest is just history, but I'll always remember that 'lay off' Nani had. The day he came back he was a focused man, ready to make the most out of his fortunes.
All I know is Sir Alex was the mastermind behind it all, many people on here, including myself questioned whether Nani would last at this club.
I couldn't be happier he proved me wrong, it's cases like Nani that says to me you can't write anybody off these days untill the gaffer does.
Posters like Ekeke and Top never stopped believing in Nani even when he was putting in his very worst performances. I wonder if they envisioned him getting this good.
But Nani, I believe had this injury in 2009. Mixed reports came out from that. Nani alluded to Sir Alex making him work on his game and official reports I believe had him as injured.
I believe he came back into the fold againt Hull at Old Trafford when he was like a new player. All of the decision making was on point. He wasn't dwelling on the ball, he was passing when it needed to be passed and he was looking like a new Nani. He was using his speed to his advantage to initiate counter attacks instead of being ponderous when there's acres of space to run with the ball at top speed.
but it was pre-mature..I wanted to see how long this new Nani could last. Then came his game at the Emirates where he truly announced himself saying 'I'm finally here now.'
and the rest is just history, but I'll always remember that 'lay off' Nani had. The day he came back he was a focused man, ready to make the most out of his fortunes.
All I know is Sir Alex was the mastermind behind it all, many people on here, including myself questioned whether Nani would last at this club.
I couldn't be happier he proved me wrong, it's cases like Nani that says to me you can't write anybody off these days untill the gaffer does.
Posters like Ekeke and Top never stopped believing in Nani even when he was putting in his very worst performances. I wonder if they envisioned him getting this good.
Can only speak for myself but I saw him not only getting this good, but better. I saw great crossing ability (even if the consistancy wasnt there), ability to shoot with both feet and aside from that second season his productivity was already pretty good. I remember when Ribery was flavour of the month and arguing that in time and certainly by Ribery's age, Nani would be at least as good.
I always felt Nani had it in him to become a player who, in his best matches, doesnt just score or create a goal but does both or scores 2, or creates 2. Like, a lot of good players when they have a really good match they set up or score a goal. I always felt like Nani would become a player who did even more than that
I've been wrong about other players obviously, but I'm glad I was right about Nani
I always felt Nani had it in him to become a player who, in his best matches, doesnt just score or create a goal but does both or scores 2, or creates 2. Like, a lot of good players when they have a really good match they set up or score a goal. I always felt like Nani would become a player who did even more than that
I've been wrong about other players obviously, but I'm glad I was right about Nani
I prefer Nani. The biggest problem I have with Rooney is that when he's off form he really struggles. Nani always seems to be productive.
Why does this always come up when he has a good game? how does him having a good game now mean we should have picked him in a match last season when he was clearly off form and valencia having a good spell?
I was calling for Nani to play the week before the final, it's not some opinion that I've just thrown out there at the drop of a hat. I know it was only preseason, but when we played Barca in the summer they couldn't deal with him. He played the game that I thought he would have played in the CL final if he was given the chance.
He's going to be regarded as one of the best in the world soon. Fans and media alike are still not seeing what a great player he is and this will probably only happen if/when Madrid or Barca come calling.
I was down in the newbies then so i wouldnt know. my apologies. as it is, i wanted him to play in the final too but as the game got closer it was obvious that valencia was in far too good nick to be dropped. we were always going to need park tp play on the left which left us with no choice but to bench nani.
i totally agree with the rest of your post though. the media hates him because well, they still have those notions about him being a diver etc whereas the effort to cut that out of his game is visible. the fans do understand what a gem we have though. anybody who watches the game can see it. brilliant player. one of the best in the world already and will only get better.
Why does this always come up when he has a good game? how does him having a good game now mean we should have picked him in a match last season when he was clearly off form and valencia having a good spell?
Didn't Nani come on in that game and become the only player to really threaten Barca all match? He should have player, regardless of form; Valencia was far too one-dimensional to ever trouble the Barcelona defence, but when Nani came on they really had their hands full. Sometimes the best form of defence is to attack, and that's where we fell down against Barcelona; when we had the ball we could do nothing with it; Nani changed that, and had he played from the start we might have watched a very different game.
Yeah he came on and looked a threat, Valencia was poor and far too one dimensional giving away countless fouls.
not really. he was off pace for quite a few weeks before that and valencia was doing very well. his added defensive qualities meant he was always going to play. add park as a cert on the left and there's why nani didnt play.
the fact that we have 3 wonderful wingers even now will always mean that the ones in form will play. its just that nani and young are doing too well now for the boss to be able to play valencia.
nani did do well after coming on but it'd have been wrong to all of a sudden start him and drop valencia when the latter was doing so well. its just that the decision can be called wrong in retrospection, SAF didnt have that benefit.
Ah I don't know Cider, I think SAF just had no choice but to pick Valencia based on form. No one could have predicted that Nani would have a good game against Barca and cause them problems, because at the time Valencia was playing great and causing world class left backs like Ashley Cole all sorts of problems, where as Nani really had been having a poor 2 months prior to that.
You can look back now and say that Nani should have started instead but everyone agreed pre-match that Valencia was the player to pick because that XI had worked so well together.
Still, don't think there should be any debate anymore as to who starts between them, especially when Nani is on form like this. He's most definitely our best attacker with Rooney absent.
Also, I heard he started 47 games last season, more than any other player. Pretty impressive considering how he was left out for 6 or 7 games towards the latter end. He's a fit bastard.
You can look back now and say that Nani should have started instead but everyone agreed pre-match that Valencia was the player to pick because that XI had worked so well together.
Still, don't think there should be any debate anymore as to who starts between them, especially when Nani is on form like this. He's most definitely our best attacker with Rooney absent.
Also, I heard he started 47 games last season, more than any other player. Pretty impressive considering how he was left out for 6 or 7 games towards the latter end. He's a fit bastard.
Yeah I'm talking from the perspective of hindsight though. You cannot say that the decision to play Valencia over Nani was the correct one simply because it seemed to be correct pre-match; if being a football manager was as easy as just making the most obvious team selections then we'd all be doing it. When Nani came on he proved exactly why he should have been selected from the start, whilst Valencia proved from the start that he was not up to the job. Regardless of whether or not anyone knew it at the time, the correct decision would have been to play Nani.
SAF did have a choice and he made the wrong one.
Everyone rightly took the piss out of Scholesey when he said "Even if we'd have won 100-nil it would have been the wrong team selection", well it follows then that it's equally as ridiculous to suggest that picking a player who was shite all game over one who came on and genuinely looked like creating chances was ever the correct decision.
The correct decision is to play the team you think is best suited to beating the opposition. valencia was playing superbly and nani had had a poor month or so. playing him would have been a gamble and SAF decided against it and went with the man in form. i dont see how it was incorrect mate. Yes, nani has a better all round game than valencia, always has been the case, but, with all his overall better game, nani had been poor or about a month while valencia had been brilliant while shredding to bits the likes of ashley cole.
nobody could have predicted that he'd be so ineffective against barca. i dont really remember about the mains but down in the newbies, all talk was about how we could use the pace of valencia as an outlet. am thinking that was the case here too.
its just a pity abidal did a marvelous job on him but i dont see how anybody would have known that would be the case. he had a stinker but it wasnt really something anyone could have guessed.
were you actually advocating playing nani ahead of valencia back then before the game? you'd have been right in that case but you'd have been in the minority. most of us saw sense in the 11 that was picked to start.
Obviously I wasn't speaking literally.
If you're speaking in hindsight then debating is pointless, but we all know that hingsight is pointless itself. Based on the match, yeah SAF picked the wrong player, based on the last 2 months before the match, he definitely made the right one.
At the time who were you saying should've been picked?
It proved to be a wrong decision in hindsight though. which is the crucial thing here. not even the best of managers can actually predict that a player would have a stinker. given a choice now knowing how it went, SAF would start nani too. but roll back the time to before the game and it'd still be valencia for most of us. because he was in superb form and nobody knew he'd have a poor game.
Watch the game again then.
I don't buy this 'nobody could have predicted...' nonsense. Being a football manager is about exactly that, making the right decisions and predicting which players will best allow you to defeat your opponents. If such predictions were impossible then football management wouldn't be a profession at all. Nani being the far superior player on the day would have been a very difficult thing to predict, but nevertheless, SAF failed to predict it, Valencia was useless and United lost the game. Playing Valencia was the wrong decision; I don't see how anyone can argue against that.
i think you're missing my point. ofcourse it turned out be the wrong decision. but thats with the benefit of hindsight when we know how the game went. nobody could have predicted this would happen before the game.
football management is not about predicting that a player X will have a stinker in a match. valencia was molesting quality LBs like ashley cole back then, one dimensional or not. what was to say that he'd not be able to get the better of abidal?
a player off form is rarely going to help a team win matches, a player who absolutely mullered one of the best LBs in the world definitely will. it was the sensible choice to make imo. wrong in hindsight ofcourse but thats easy.
It wasn't that Valencia 'had a stinker' though; he just wasn't the right man for the job despite his form. Creating chances against Barcelona was always going to be a difficult ask, and for that we needed creativity; something which Valencia doesn't possess much of but Nani has in abundance. Valencia plays by numbers whereas Nani prefers moments of magic; it's the latter that was required in order for us to make the most out of what little opportunities we might get against Barca whilst the former proved absolutely useless. SAF might have predicted this, but he didn't; management isn't just a case of picking your form players for every game, is it?
SAF failed to predict a completely hypothetical scenario which never actually happened?
The old man is losing it.
I think you're missing the point.
Can we stop using this 'nobody could have predicted...' bollocks? Nani had had the season of his career whilst Valencia was just recently back from injury and in SAF's words, "playing on adrenaline". Nani had built up a reputation as a big-game player and, as everybody knew, was fully capable of creating something from nothing and winning a game, even when he and the team might be on the back foot; Valencia on the other hand had no such reputation, and was known instead, once drifted our of a game, to offer no attacking threat, which is exactly what happened; it was always going to be difficult for Valencia to make an impact on the game, he wasn't going to see much of the ball, and he doesn't thrive under such conditions. Do you think the consideration of the above was impossible pre-match? Of course Valencia's no-show could have been predicted; most people, unfortunately including SAF, just failed to do so, and thus the incorrect decision was made.
It appears that when we play Barca, we seem to go flat out from the off to grab an early goal which suits us and would have them chasing the game. from this perspective you'd have to say Nani is the man. He sure made a difference when he came on - but that doesn't mean he'd've started like that given the chance. Fergie sees him every day in training and can see if he's buzzing or not. The Carragher assault seemed to take the wind out of his sails. We'll never know what was best even though he was the main threat when he came on. Hindsight.
Not really. against barca, our best hope was fast efficient counters. something valencia is as good as nani. we intended to exploit his pace against abidal. sadly, it didnt really work out. you're making valencia look like a very average player, he really isnt. he's got pace, beats his man and drills good crosses in. he's a typical old school winger.
as i said, for all of nani's creativity and potential to perform magic moments, he was in poor form and not doing anything of note. had SAF suddenly decided to play him instead of an on form valencia, he'd have been criticised anyways.
you cannot say its a mistake when almost everybody agreed that the line up we put on was the best at that moment. SAF or anybody for that matter cannot ''predict'' that a certain player would suddenly cause barca problems even though he failed to turn it on against premeir league teams and someone who was coming off the back of a great run in form where he had the better of ashley cole would suddenly struggle to beat abidal.
Nani looked class when he came on, he looked dangerous and the Barcelona defence clearly didn't know how to handle him. Valencia looked uninspiring and one-dimensional from the start; how does that not equate to Nani being the far superior player of the two on the day?
The Barcelona defence didn't know how to handle Nani? Perhaps I missed the string of opportunities he created when he came on? Only, the way I remember it he created, well, nothing?
As for judging any player coming off the bench as "far superior on the day", that's just a bit daft. It's easy to look a bit sharper than everyone else when a substitute has fresh legs up against a tiring defence. Means feck all though and certainly doesn't invalidate the decision to start with a player in better form ahead of him. Unless you think Fergie dropped a bollock by keeping Solskjaer on the bench all those years?
reputation? teams are picked on form mate not on reputation. nani was in piss poor form and struggling to perform against regular premier league teams for a month.
i'l ask again, where you actually advocating we play nani instead of valencia pre game? i dont think many were. hindsight is a good thing, but managers dont have the benefit of that.
i also think you somehow underrate valencia.
Well, needless to say, I disagree. I don't think SAF's decision to play Valencia over Nani was as easy or as obvious as you say, and I think it was the wrong decision.
there's a bit of a difference coming off the bench with pent up energy vs tiring legs and starting with the same impact when he'd actually been a shadow of his earlier form post-Carragher.
People have been talking about Valencia being one-dimensional since he arrived at the club but they still can't stop him. Even when on fire people on here were still banging on about the one-dimensional crap
Yes I was. I thought then, as I do now, that Nani is a better player than Valencia, and that if we were to beat Barcelona then we needed to put our best players on the pitch and just hope that they played out of their skins; I think we'd have made a game of it with Nani on the wing.
He is one dimensional though. That's not necessarily a criticism; he's just that type of winger. Do you disagree with that?
You seem to think form has no bearing when it comes to picking a team. That's a very strange idea.
Moving back to the specifics of this discussion, you also seem to be ignoring that the Barca game wasn't the first occasion that season when Fergie went with Valencia ahead of Nani. He made the exact same decision against Chelsea and was totally vindicated in doing so.
nani's a better player than valencia, agree with that. i think SAF does too. just that post that carragher tackle, nani didnt really play well. had a poor end to the season if you like. that coincided with valencia coming back and playing really well. hence the selection in the final.
anyways, this discussion isnt really going anywhere. lets hope we draw barca again at some stage this season and nani has a good one.
A strawman argument.
I do not think that.
I think that Nani, like Rooney, is a player often worth playing regardless of form.
Often but not always?
Good. We're getting somewhere.
Bearing in mind that Valencia had been so impressive in the CL knock-out stages en route to the final - and Nani had been so poor in every game since he got assaulted by Carragher - don't you think that maybe this might have been one of those occasions where it isn't "always" right to pick an out of form player over a player who was in a rich vein of form at the time?
And he made the same decision again, only this time incorrectly, against Barcelona. What's your point?
My point is that you're talking out your arse when you state "only this time incorrectly" as a fact. That's not a fact. It's an opinion. Your opinion. Fergie - and the last three people posting in this thread other than you - would all disagree.
It's really not that hard to see the logic in Fergie's decision to back Valencia against Barca and there's absolutely zero evidence that Nani would have miraculously found the form that had deserted him in the preceding weeks in such a tough game, with Barca playing as well as they did.
The simple fact that Valencia had such a tough time, after looking so impressive in the previous rounds of the competition makes a mockery of your theory that Nani would absolutely, definitely improve on the form he was showing leading up to this game. It just doesn't make any sense, on any level.
The decision was understandable, yes, justifiable even. However, I'd have understood the decision to play Nani over Valencia too, I think Nani's season made that justifiable; do you think the decision was a no brainer for SAF? The point is that I believe SAF opted for the wrong choice of winger. We know you hate Nani, so I wouldn't expect you to ever agree with me.
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