Indeed. He was shite, it doesn't mean he is shite.
Luis Nani | 2012/13 Performances
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Indeed. He was shite, it doesn't mean he is shite.
I'm guessing he didn't come on yesterday because of his 'dire' performance vs Chelsea. But honestly, how many chances has Valencia gotten this season? He seems to get endless opportunities despite the fact he has been absolute dog shite all season.
And with Nani it's one bad performance and he is dropped for weeks. Double standards...
And with Nani it's one bad performance and he is dropped for weeks. Double standards...
With what happened last night, no wonder the rumors about him leaving might resurface
I'd be surprised if he doesn't go. It's clear he's not a Fergie favourite, and why should he spend the rest of his career trying to roll that boulder uphill?
Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. I find it baffling that Nani wasn't given game time yesterday. Young had an OK game, but in the dying minutes, I would still want Nani on to create something, go past a man, deliver a good cross or a strike a great shot. You never know with him. Rooney, Valencia, Young etc have all had just as poor matches this season as Nani played against Chelsea.
Yeah sadly that has always been the way with Nani, not a Fergie favourite, he is certainly held to higher standards than his fellow wingers.
I'm resigned to the fact that it's probably best for Nani to move on in order to find his game. He'll be a world beater somewhere where the supporters and manager are on his side, but this environment just doesn't seem to be working for him. I don't think he'll stick around.
How bad do others have to be for him to get given more time? Anyone know how many games he has played this season in all competitions? And how many he has been fit for?
Really, what the feck are we doing here? It's just stupid now. If we are selling him, fine, but what sense is there in not playing him at all? From what I understand, we'd get more money for him if he's playing half decent, or even just playing, so from that side of things, the price goes up. In terms of the team, our team would be much better, because we are playing Young and Valencia who are both completely shit at the moment. It also can't be because we don't want to play someone who is about to leave, we were playing Pogba and Morrison right up till we sold them! I can't see the advantage in keeping him on the bench, starting him randomly every now and then and then dropping him for games at a time, which surely can't help a player short on match time or confidence. Either play him properly, or don't at all then.
However we could have gone about dealing with the Nani situation, I'm pretty sure this was one of the worst ways to do it.
However we could have gone about dealing with the Nani situation, I'm pretty sure this was one of the worst ways to do it.
If he was 100% fit, it is indeed mind-boggling he didn't play any part.
Hello Hectic.
Nani was so atrocious in his last appearance he didn't deserve to get anywhere near the team last night. As it turned out Young was one of our better performers (and got the nod, presumably, because he was also excellent at the COMS) and Valencia was a very effective substitute. So I don't see why people are getting their knickers in a knot about Nani's absence.
As for the bigger picture, Nani is obviously at loggerheads with the club over this new contract and not putting in the type of performance to convince the manager he's as important a player as he seems to think he is. Looks like he's on his way out. Never kicked on from an excellent 18 months or so and made himself an invaluable member of the team. Bit of a shame but there you go. We've coped just fine losing far better players than him in the past.
Valencia wasn't an effective substitute though, he was ok but based on his performances this entire season there was never any suggestion that bringing him on would do anything to turn the game around for us and that's exactly how it played out.
if Nani deserved to be dropped from the team last ngiht because of his atrocious performance against Chelsea (despite being mostly very good in his previous four performances), why then is Valencia still playing so much despite being so poor all season?
I think that's the main issue behind it all, there's no real consistency behind all of this. Nani has one poor game, he's fecked out of the team for a month, Valencia or Young have poor games, they're persisted with.
if Nani deserved to be dropped from the team last ngiht because of his atrocious performance against Chelsea (despite being mostly very good in his previous four performances), why then is Valencia still playing so much despite being so poor all season?
I think that's the main issue behind it all, there's no real consistency behind all of this. Nani has one poor game, he's fecked out of the team for a month, Valencia or Young have poor games, they're persisted with.
It's obvious that the issue with the contract is a huge factor in Nani's fall from grace. If he was performing on the pitch, though, he's have played a lot more than he has. I don't think there's any doubt about that.
Besides, both Valencia and Young have spent a fair bit of time on the bench in recent weeks. It's not as though they're starting game after game regardless. Vaencia was dropped in 3 of our last 7 league games. Young didn't start in 4 of them.
All our wingers have struggled for form this season and all of them have been in and out of the team as a result. Nani is the only one playing silly buggers over a contract, though, so stands to reason he'll get the cold shoulder more than most.
For a while people were harping on about Nani's mistakes that lead to goals as a reason Sir Alex doesn't trust him, largely due to the one against Chelsea earlier this season. Giggs did something probably worse yesterday and gets a complete pass.
Granted, Giggs obviously has a lot more credit with the club. It's still funny to see parallels like that.
Nani definitely should have been on yesterday despite his performance against Chelsea, if you need a goal out of nowhere Nani is still probably the best player we have for that.
How's it going Pogue, nice to see you back.
I think the wider point being that Young and Valencia have in general, been awful this season. This has still resulted in both of them getting huge run of games over the season, even at their worst, they were still being played a lot. Nani despite looking better than them both in recent weeks - aside from his last game - still get's stop-started or just not played at all, and it's impossible to build form like this. It's stupid really because he's clearly our best winger, and over the season in the few appearances he has had, he's still been better than them bar a couple performances, so regardless of his situation we should have been playing him, because we are better with him in the team, and our biggest problem at the moment is our wings. Personally I would have had him starting, and if not then he definitely should have featured at some point, we were crying for more down either wings. I didn't think Young had a bad game, but I still would have started Nani over him if there was a choice, because he's a much better player.
How can he put in "performances" when he isn't getting a run of games at all? He's getting minutes here and there, Nani is not the type of player who can build form on that. I said the same thing a while ago, imagine this was Rooney, we would play through it because we know he needs time on the pitch to be able to build up confidence/match fitness and then find consistent form. Not to mention the performances from our other wingers which have been consistently shit. He came back from a long spell of injury and within 4-5 games was looking better than anything they had produced all season, which is why he got the Madrid start. This then comes back to the contract situation, but that was my point, we would realize he's going and play him regardless because a) he will be worth more, and b) our team will be better.
Yeah, I think it's mostly due to the contract situation, but I thought that was Hectic's overall point, that even if he is on his way out, we should still be using him.
I don't think anyone can really argue that there was more of a chance that Nani would do something to help us equal the match last night than Valencia/Young. I think there has been big differences between the length of time Nani gets in the team before being dropped, and how long he gets dropped for, than with Valencia and Young. They're persisted with far more.
The Valencia sub was weird, I could be wrong but it looked like Valencia was coming on for Welbeck before the goal. At that point I'm sure Sir Alex was trying to go with his general strategy yesterday of grinding out a tie, but then after they scored Sir Alex still put Valencia in, despite him being basically our worst option currently for chasing a goal. I don't understand it, it's like Sir Alex just didn't know what to do.
Spot on, I don't understand the situation at all. The treatment of Nani is more unique and, although he's not grabbed the limited chances he's had and put in 09/10 type performances, he's not had anything like the same sort of leeway. In the short time he's been on the pitch, he's looked comfortably more threatening than Young/Valencia this season, not to mention more beneficial to our overall play.
We're going to lose a top player for an absolute pittance at this rate. The contract issue must be the problem but I don't see the sense in freezing him out altogether.
With Young injured, there's no excuse not to start him against Stoke now.
Mmmm... I'd like to see some evidence that this is really happening. My perception is that all three of them have been in and out of the team a lot this season with Nani missing the most games because he tore his hamstring and had to spend a couple of months (maybe more?) out injured.
I also think that one of Nanis' poor performances is far more detrimental to the team than a poor performance from the other two you mention. Even if they lack penetration, both Young and Valencia are good at maintaining possession and helping out their full-back. When Nani's off his game he has a terrible habit of losing the ball in really dangerous areas of the pitch and he's never been as good at defending as the other wingers in our squad.
Faced with three under-performing wingers I don't think it's unreasonable for Fergie to swap them in and out of the team until someone finds form and a tendency to go with the "safe" options, if in doubt. As far as Nani is concerned, contract issues aside, he's been shit unlucky that whenever he's looked like hitting form this season he's promptly got injured (or harshly sent off).
Nail on the head.
No idea how Ferguson truly feels about Nani, but I wouldn't trust him in a big game with the way this team plays. He is off form and not a particularly disciplined player. Why would we select him?
Thought Young had a very good game last night BTW.
Thought Young had a very good game last night BTW.
Nani has played 13(5) total - 6(4) in the PL.
Valencia has played 20(7) total - 18(5) in the PL.
Young has played 17(4) total - 17(2) in the PL.
Whatever way you look at it, that's a pretty massive gap in PL appearances especially between Nani and the other two, and you can't just attribute that to injuries because Young has been injured just as much as him.
Off the top of my head, I recall Nani playing poorly against Everton and being dropped completely from the squad for the next game. he only got back into the team when Young and Valencia were both injured. Since they came back he's barely been given games in the PL when both of them were fit, up until his cameo against Reading in the FA Cup (which he was still on the bench for and only came on in because Young was injured) where he was our best player and after that played well in his next three games, only to then have a crap performance against Chelsea, and guess what, he's completely dropped again.
I don't get the not trusting him element, especially considering we played him against Madrid.
How many of the games he missed has been fit for?
Agree with that. There is no way Fergie would've played him against Madrid if he doesn't trust him - that was probably our biggest game of the season. Maybe it was for tactical reasons to attack their right back, Arbeloa, but Fergie still trusted him.
I personally think Fergie DOES hold him to higher standards than the other wingers (due to a combination of his past performances for us and his natural talent) - and when he sees a poor Nani performance it irates him more than if it was a poor Valencia/Young performance. Kind of like Rooney who has a lower 'bottom level' than someone like RVP, for example.
I don't see where Nani can go. Given the current economic situation, there are very few clubs with money to burn and Nan's form this season is hardly going to inspire a rich chairman to fund huge wages. Rather like Vidic, I expect him to stay, not because he wants to, but because the clubs he would like to join aren't interested. We know from last summer that he doesn't want to play in Russia.
He's been injured for most of this season; I don't think it's fair to make any judgements about his future based on that. I expect him to be here next year.
He'll probably stay, but only once he realises that no club will fork out the apparent obscene wages he wants.
It was a joke...
Wasn't that to stem any interest from Zenit? I'd read that he asked for £250k per week at Zenit pretty much knowing he wouldn't get it, as he didn't want to go but the club had accepted a bid.
I don't think he'll go to another team in the Premiership, least I should hope not. Spain might be an invitation, but it'll be a massive step down in terms of the quality of the team he's playing in. Real are stocked on forwards, Barca won't take him and Athletico Madrid, although probably guaranteed CL football with Malaga's financial difficulty, aren't near us in terms of the grandeur of the club.
There's lots of clubs over-paying players these days. I'm sure PSG would be interested.
If he does leave, it won't be on to bigger and better things anyway. If we got £25 to £30million for him, should he still be holding out for wages he's not worth, I'd be happy to sell. Just don't think many clubs are willing to meet his demands, the fact Zenit couldn't, and they rely on obscene wages to attract players, tells a story.
SAF said Valencia was good against Chelsea, Nani was crap against Chelsea.
Tada.
Tada.
Valencia coming on when we were chasing a goal while Hernandez, Nani and Kagawa sat on the bench was really quite hilarious a sub even by Fergie's poor standards.
Fergie's poor standards. Christ.
If he doesn't sign a new contract we'll be forced to let him go cheap, unless we want to lose him for nothing when he signs a pre-contract with another club in January. If he's prepared to sit it out for another year, the cards are now in his hands.
If fact, that might be the game Fergie is playing. Sign or move on, unless you want to spend next season sitting on the bench.
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