Luis Nani | 2012/13 Performances

[Forevergiggs]

I know - I think he was referring to Italy rather than Russia, and his wage demands in Italy wouldn't be that far off what he's supposedly wanting here.

Like I said, we will never know but from the papers it looked they were the only ones he was talking with in regards to a move. May be it was Italy but I doubt it.

Edit: Also, if we cannot meet his wage demands I doubt the Italians can. That league doesn't have much money these days.

 

[Gee Male]

I'm not sure if Young is just criminally underrated on here or whether he just gets a hard time due as a direct threat to Nani's position. I assume it's the latter - Welbeck was getting abuse on here when starting on the left, now Young is, and normally from those in here bigging Nani up. Some coincidence.

Nani has played bugger all this year because when he has played he hasn't been good enough. Simple as that.

Plus, we've now won 11 of our opening 13 games of the season in all competitions while scoring a shit load of goals - do we really need to give someone on the periphery of that a 50% wage increase to 130k a week?

He doesn't really want to go to Russia so when they were in for him, Nani's demands would probably be a lot higher than what he'd want if he were to sign a new contract here as Russia is not exactly the best place to live or play.

I can't work out if this is a serious post mate. St Petersburg is an awesome city!

 

[Massive Spanner]

I'm not sure if Young is just criminally underrated on here or whether he just gets a hard time due as a direct threat to Nani's position. I assume it's the latter - Welbeck was getting abuse on here when starting on the left, now Young is, and normally from those in here bigging Nani up. Some coincidence.

Nani is just a better player, that's all. I find it hard to believe that anyone would disagree, it's plain to see. I don't think anyone is overly critical of Young really, he's generally acknowledged as a good, but not great winger, and a useful option to have.

Nani has played bugger all this year because when he has played he hasn't been good enough. Simple as that.

Probably our best player against Gala (bar the penalty) and one of our best against Spurs, and those were his last two starts.

Plus, we've now won 11 of our opening 13 games of the season in all competitions while scoring a shit load of goals - do we really need to give someone on the periphery of that a 50% wage increase to 130k a week?
!

He's clearly "on the periphery" because of the contract situation itself, not for footballing reasons.

 

[Forevergiggs]

Zenit: Nani priced himself out of move

Zenit St Petersburg's talks with Manchester United winger Nani collapsed because of the Portuguese winger's "unreal" wage demands, Zenit director-general Maxim Mitrofanov told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Thursday.

The big-spending Mitrofanov said his team did not come close to agreeing personal terms with the 25-year-old, even after United chiefs expressed their willingness to part with Nani.

Zenit recently acquired Brazil forward Hulk and Belgium midfielder Axel Witsel for a combined $101 million. The Russian transfer window closed Thursday.

"If Hulk had demanded €8 million to €10 million a year, these conditions would have been unacceptable for Zenit," Mitrofanov said. "The transfer of Nani failed mostly due to this reason, as he asked for an enormous salary."

The Portugal international did not enjoy the best of starts to the new Premier League season, turning in a poor display at Everton that saw him subbed and then dropped from the next game.

The collapse of the deal leaves Nani in limbo at United, with the club's desire to offload him suggesting he may struggle to force his way back into Sir Alex Ferguson's first-team plans. It is reported that his agent had been demanding a 130,000-pounds-per-week ($208,000) deal to keep his client in Manchester.

Meanwhile, Zenit also failed in its bid to bring Arsenal's Andrei Arshavin to St. Petersburg in the hours before the Russian transfer window slammed shut on Thursday night, leaving the winger out in the cold for club and country after he was dropped by new Russia boss Fabio Capello.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/s...nchester-united's-nani-price-too-high?cc=4716

*********

Nani studying options amid contract talks with Man. United

Manchester United attacker Nani is considering his options while he negotiates a new contract with the Red Devils.

The 25 year-old admits the possibility of leaving the club and moving to another league but conceded he is happy at Old Trafford, where he has been for the past five years.

“I am really happy but I don’t know about my future. Now I will study opportunities,” he told Portuguese TV station RTP.

“Football is not only about England or Spain. It is possible to enjoy success in other countries. My agent is waiting on news about United. We have presented a counter-offer and now we are waiting on an offer from the club.”

http://www.footballzz.com/noticia.php?id=66799

******

Don't know how trustworthy is footballzzzzzz but those were the quotes I was mentioning earlier.

 

[Neutral]

at what point will the 'inconsistent' tag go away....Time after time, people have posted how he's been one of the top assist getters in the league the past 3-4 seasons, yet we still have people bitching about his consistency.

inconsistent compared to who????

Unfortunately, over the last 18 months he has left much to be desired.

Last season - in 29 league matches 10 assists and 8 goals.

Players with more assists

Silva - 15(36 matches)
Mata - 13(34 matches)
Valencia - 13(27 matches)
Adebayor - 11(33 matches)
Song - 11(34 matches)

Only one out and out winger with more assists and that's Valencia. All the rest played through the middle and got many touches of the ball, and in the case of Mata and Silva - basically ran their teams.

Nani also happened to outscore all of those players in the league with the exception of Adebayor(a striker).

Everyone raved about the season Bale had....World Class Gareth Bale - off to Barca...blah blah blah

Nani - 29 matches 8 goals & 10 assists
Bale - 36 matches 9 goals & 10 assists

Then again, I'm just a Nani apologist

 

[Massive Spanner]

Yeah but whatever, assists and goals mean nothing, well, apart from winning us games, but that's irrelevant! He's all inconsistent and shit, takes too many shots and misplaces too many passes!

 

[Tomalonge]

I think we should shoot the lot of them and replace them with robots.

It's the only way to guarantee this "consistency" people talk of, forgetting of course that they're talking about human beings. FFS guys, even Captain Consistent (Antonio Valencia) has his off days, spoilt!

 

[kietotheworld]

Two simple reasons: he's a good judge of a player, and he played him more often last season.

Wouldn't take anything from last season given that both players were plagued by injury. The fact he's picking Young ahead of Nani suggests to me he rates Young more highly, contract disputes never stopped him picking Keane, Rooney or Brown.

Clueless.

He was injured by Carragher for a month at the same time Valencia came back.

Oh and by the way, that season Nani played more minutes than any other player in our squad.

A month? What the feck? I swear that injury gets worse every time I hear people speak about it. He was injured against Liverpool on Sunday March 6th 2011, he missed an FA Cup match against Arsenal the next week and then played against Marseille on Tuesday 15th.

He may have played the most minutes, but that wasn't the argument - he wasn't a guaranteed starter. 2 of our 3 massive games against Chelsea that season he didn't start, CL Semi First Leg he got 7 minutes, CL Final he only came on after an injury to Fabio. When everyone's fit Nani has always been a player on the periphery of the first team.

He was comfortably our best player (and recognised as such by his teammates) during the only season in the last 3 where we have won a trophy. Coincidentally this was the season where Rooney was trying to engineer a move away. I'd assume that is the reason that at the time many people (myself included) felt that they'd rather get rid of Rooney than lose Nani.

I think Nani for the last 12-15 months has the same problem that Rafael was suffering because of (and Anderson is still suffering because of). A combination of injuries and being played sporadically at best is resulting in inconsistent form. In the season and a half where he was playing week in, week out, injury free he was our best player overall. This is why I find the talk of inconsistency bizarre... I can't think of a single player in our team who has found their best form whilst playing inconsistently; with Rooney being at the top of that list.

I'm sure the stats back up that he isn't particularly inconsistent when playing regularly.

Being voted the best player over the course of a season doesn't make you a better player than your colleagues. Valencia was voted Player of the Season last year, does that mean he's a better player than Rooney? Only if you are a moron.

Replace inconsistent with injury prone then, different excuse but the effect's the same, he doesn't come up with the goods often enough.

 

[Gee Male]

Nani is just a better player, that's all. I find it hard to believe that anyone would disagree, it's plain to see. I don't think anyone is overly critical of Young really, he's generally acknowledged as a good, but not great winger, and a useful option to have.

I'm not sure it is "plain to see" at all. I think Young offers more in tight games than Nani, while Nani possesses the ability to break a park-the-bus side down better than Young. Different qualities in both. it might be "plain to see" for an 8 year old mesmerized by step overs, but not for those looking at what's best for the team.

Probably our best player against Gala (bar the penalty) and one of our best against Spurs, and those were his last two starts.

Fair enough. the first was a game we created feck all and Nani missed an awful penalty, the second was a game we lost at home and Nani was partly at fault for the first goal - Vertonghen breezed by him. But whatever.

He's clearly "on the periphery" because of the contract situation itself, not for footballing reasons.

That's merely how you are choosing to read it. You have absolutely no evidence that that's the case.

 

[kietotheworld]

at what point will the 'inconsistent' tag go away....Time after time, people have posted how he's been one of the top assist getters in the league the past 3-4 seasons, yet we still have people bitching about his consistency.

inconsistent compared to who????



Last season - in 29 league matches 10 assists and 8 goals.

Players with more assists

Silva - 15(36 matches)
Mata - 13(34 matches)
Valencia - 13(27 matches)
Adebayor - 11(33 matches)
Song - 11(34 matches)

Only one out and out winger with more assists and that's Valencia. All the rest played through the middle and got many touches of the ball, and in the case of Mata and Silva - basically ran their teams.

Nani also happened to outscore all of those players in the league with the exception of Adebayor(a striker).

Everyone raved about the season Bale had....World Class Gareth Bale - off to Barca...blah blah blah

Nani - 29 matches 8 goals & 10 assists
Bale - 36 matches 9 goals & 10 assists

Then again, I'm just a Nani apologist

This is the whole point. When he's good he delivers a lot of goals and assists, but when he's bad he's fecking awful, and you never know which Nani you're going to get. Those other players you mention, when they're having a bad game they work hard, they don't constantly give the ball away and try stupid long runs into nowhere. If he became consistent he could be world class, but at the moment you don't know what you're going to get when he's picked - world class or a liability, he is not reliable.

 

[Massive Spanner]

A month? What the feck? I swear that injury gets worse every time I hear people speak about it. He was injured against Liverpool on Sunday March 6th 2011, he missed an FA Cup match against Arsenal the next week and then played against Marseille on Tuesday 15th.

He may have played the most minutes, but that wasn't the argument - he wasn't a guaranteed starter. 2 of our 3 massive games against Chelsea that season he didn't start, CL Semi First Leg he got 7 minutes, CL Final he only came on after an injury to Fabio. When everyone's fit Nani has always been a player on the periphery of the first team.

What the feck are you talking about? All those games you mentioned were in the last few months of the season after the injury. And yes, the injury was supposed to be a month, that was the initial assessment, but he was rushed back, I wonder why he was rushed back, maybe because he was so important to us that he was needed?

But hey, playing more than any other player in a season is apparently irrelevant. Also, he displaced Valencia at the start of 2010 in the team, he was selected ahead of him for the first few months of last season, he was picked ahead of both Valencia and Young in our biggest game last season, Man City away.

It's like you pick things here and there to prove your point, when in reality a fully fit Nani since 2010 has usually been an automatic starter in the team, bar the latter end of last season and the beginning of this.

 

[Gee Male]

This is the whole point. When he's good he delivers a lot of goals and assists, but when he's bad he's fecking awful, and you never know which Nani you're going to get. Those other players you mention, when they're having a bad game they work hard, they don't constantly give the ball away and try stupid long runs into nowhere. If he became consistent he could be world class, but at the moment you don't know what you're going to get when he's picked - world class or a liability, he is not reliable.

Unreliable is probably a much better word than inconsistent. I don't think anyone could dispute unreliable.

 

[Forevergiggs]

Yeah but whatever, assists and goals mean nothing, well, apart from winning us games, but that's irrelevant! He's all inconsistent and shit, takes too many shots and misplaces too many passes!

Do you realize that every time someone misplaces a pass it gives the opposition a chance to break and attack us?

Anyways, there is no point talking to you about Nani. You are are clearly not able to see as it is whenever he is mentioned.

 

[Massive Spanner]

I'm not sure it is "plain to see" at all. I think Young offers more in tight games than Nani, while Nani possesses the ability to break a park-the-bus side down better than Young. Different qualities in both. it might be "plain to see" for an 8 year old mesmerized by step overs, but not for those looking at what's best for the team.

So I'm an eight year old mesmerized by step overs? Good to know.

It is pretty plain to see who is better, most posters on this board see it.

Fair enough. the first was a game we created feck all and Nani missed an awful penalty, the second was a game we lost at home and Nani was partly at fault for the first goal - Vertonghen breezed by him. But whatever.

But whatever? Sounds like you're making excuses after your original null and void point.

That's merely how you are choosing to read it. You have absolutely no evidence that that's the case.

Oh I see, but it's ok for others to claim it's the other way round, despite having no evidence either? Got it.

 

[Gee Male]

What the feck are you talking about? All those games you mentioned were in the last few months of the season after the injury. And yes, the injury was supposed to be a month, that was the initial assessment, but he was rushed back, I wonder why he was rushed back, maybe because he was so important to us that he was needed?

But hey, playing more than any other player in a season is apparently irrelevant. Also, he displaced Valencia at the start of 2010 in the team, he was selected ahead of him for the first few months of last season, he was picked ahead of both Valencia and Young in our biggest game last season, Man City away.

It's like you pick things here and there to prove your point, when in reality a fully fit Nani since 2010 has usually been an automatic starter in the team, bar the latter end of last season and the beginning of this.

This being the start of last season where Valencia missed the first month after being injured at Copa America, only to get back in the team for the first Champions League game and then doing a stint at right back for 3 or 4 games up to mid November-ish?

It's like you pick things here and there to prove your point, when in reality a fully fit Valencia since 2009 has usually been an automatic starter in the team, bar the... erm... oh.

 

[Forevergiggs]

Unreliable is probably a much better word than inconsistent. I don't think anyone could dispute unreliable.

Don't be so sure.

 

[Massive Spanner]

Do you realize that every time someone misplaces a pass it gives the opposition a chance to break and attack us?

Anyways, there is no point talking to you about Nani. You are are clearly not able to see as it is whenever he is mentioned.

And you are full of shit, time after time people posts stats and facts to prove you wrong, but hey, bold a little bit of my sarcastic post, which was, you know, sarcastic. I don't actually think an on form Nani does misplace too many passes, because his stats in the last two seasons show an 80%+ pass success rate as I recall.

 

[Brophs]

This thread is one of the worst things in the world.

 

[Massive Spanner]

This being the start of last season where Valencia missed the first month after being injured at Copa America, only to get back in the team for the first Champions League game and then doing a stint at right back for 3 or 4 games up to mid November-ish?

It's like you pick things here and there to prove your point, when in reality a fully fit Valencia since 2009 has usually been an automatic starter in the team, bar the... erm... oh.

Bar the other two times I mentioned right beside your bolded part.

The irony is incredible.

 

[Danillaco]

at what point will the 'inconsistent' tag go away....Time after time, people have posted how he's been one of the top assist getters in the league the past 3-4 seasons, yet we still have people bitching about his consistency.

inconsistent compared to who????



Last season - in 29 league matches 10 assists and 8 goals.

Players with more assists

Silva - 15(36 matches)
Mata - 13(34 matches)
Valencia - 13(27 matches)
Adebayor - 11(33 matches)
Song - 11(34 matches)

Only one out and out winger with more assists and that's Valencia. All the rest played through the middle and got many touches of the ball, and in the case of Mata and Silva - basically ran their teams.

Nani also happened to outscore all of those players in the league with the exception of Adebayor(a striker).

Everyone raved about the season Bale had....World Class Gareth Bale - off to Barca...blah blah blah

Nani - 29 matches 8 goals & 10 assists
Bale - 36 matches 9 goals & 10 assists

Then again, I'm just a Nani apologist

This, all this inconsistency shit, is more about an excuse for criticizing the guy. "Oh, but He don't perform every single game...", but how many players do? The important thing that at any given moment he can produce changing moment, and win us the game, as he did in a number of occasions.

He's surely a class player, and deserves +100k salary. Especially considering some of his peers. Maybe not 130, but that's why you negotiate.

He's brilliant, and I hope he won't leave.

 

[Gee Male]

So I'm an eight year old mesmerized by step overs? Good to know.

It is pretty plain to see who is better, most posters on this board see it.

You may not be eight years old, but you've pretty obviously got an unhealthy man-crush on Nani.

I'm not really interested in what most people on this board "see", it's hardly full of genuises as it is.

But whatever? Sounds like you're making excuses after your original null and void point.

Excuses? Null and void point? I said Nani hasn't been good enough this year - do you disagree? You picked out two games where you think he did OK, I said whatever because it's irrelevant to my original point seeing as we've played far more than two games, and especially seeing as how he was nowhere near his best in either of those two games.

Oh I see, but it's ok for others to claim it's the other way round, despite having no evidence either? Got it.

I didn't claim anything the other way around. You seem to claim that it's definitely not football reasons - care to provide some proof?

You really are overly-touchy when it comes to Nani.

 

[Tomalonge]

"Oh, but He don't perform every single game...", but how many players do?

This, it really irks me that people demand perfection from a player and label them as "shit" otherwise.

Nobody, not even Dennis Irwin played every single game at the best of his ability. Would you call Irwin inconsistent for us? feck no.

 

[Gee Male]

This thread is one of the worst things in the world.

This is the best post on this page of the thread. Not sure why I even got involved now.

 

[Forevergiggs]

And you are full of shit, time after time people posts stats and facts to prove you wrong, but hey, bold a little bit of my sarcastic post, which was, you know, sarcastic. I don't actually think an on form Nani does misplace too many passes, because his stats in the last two seasons show an 80%+ pass success rate as I recall.

People who don't watch games or don't understand the game needs stats to prove their point. I don't. I watch 95% of United games (And not on some shitty stream but live television or a couple of times live) and don't need the help of stats to prove what I see from naked eye. He is most inconsistent, unreliable player in the squad. Brilliant when on form but ordinary when not. That is why the manager of this club doesn't play him in important games and prefers the likes of Park, Valencia or Young over him.

"On form Nani" is the major issue, as it doesn't happens very often. Never has put out good performances on a consistent basis besides that period in the first half of 2010.

No point having a discussion with you as you are clearly biased. Neither am I ready for your tantrum. Bye!

 

[kietotheworld]

What the feck are you talking about? All those games you mentioned were in the last few months of the season after the injury. And yes, the injury was supposed to be a month, that was the initial assessment, but he was rushed back, I wonder why he was rushed back, maybe because he was so important to us that he was needed?

But hey, playing more than any other player in a season is apparently irrelevant. Also, he displaced Valencia at the start of 2010 in the team, he was selected ahead of him for the first few months of last season, he was picked ahead of both Valencia and Young in our biggest game last season, Man City away.

It's like you pick things here and there to prove your point, when in reality a fully fit Nani since 2010 has usually been an automatic starter in the team, bar the latter end of last season and the beginning of this.

Yeah, either he was rushed back or he was vastly exaggerating his injury, which was basically a cut to the shin. There was no break, nothing which could explain months of poor form other than psychological damage.

Temporarily displacing Valencia and getting the odd game above he and Young sounds an awful lot like Ferguson picks him sometimes and doesn't pick him others, which is exactly what I'd expect of a player who isn't an automatic starter. For the Swansea match immediately after Nani's awful display against Manchester City, he was dropped to the bench - he's clearly not guaranteed starts. If Ferguson thinks he's in form or other players are out of form/injured or that he's favourable against a particular opponent then he'll get games, that's it.

If he was really an automatic starter you wouldn't need to randomly exclude certain periods of time from his career.

Unreliable is probably a much better word than inconsistent. I don't think anyone could dispute unreliable.

They're the same thing.

 

[Massive Spanner]

You may not be eight years old, but you've pretty obviously got an unhealthy man-crush on Nani.

I'm not really interested in what most people on this board "see", it's hardly full of genuises as it is.



Excuses? Null and void point? I said Nani hasn't been good enough this year - do you disagree? You picked out two games where you think he did OK, I said whatever because it's irrelevant to my original point seeing as we've played far more than two games, and especially seeing as how he was nowhere near his best in either of those two games.



I didn't claim anything the other way around. You seem to claim that it's definitely not football reasons - care to provide some proof?

You really are overly-touchy when it comes to Nani.

I'm not overly touchy, I'm bored at work, in a thread about Nani, seems legit that I discuss him? Especially when people post false claims and myths. Anyway, for every poster like me who is a fan of him, there is another poster who comes into this thread and has a clear anti-Nani hat on their head too.

if anything the only thing I was "touchy-feely" about is you deciding to bold out a tiny part of my post in order to prove a point which I already had answers to right beside the bolded part in the post. It's a bit odd.

Anyway, I'm getting bored of the multi-quotes (that admittedly, I started ). Whether I have your dumb man crush on nani or whatever is irrelevant, I'm defending a Man Utd player, big whoop, we all have favourites. I've been very critical of his performances this season so far too, by the way, but I think he did more than "Ok" in his last two starts, so it makes no sense that he hasn't played since.

On a personal level (should've added that in), I think it's quite clear that his lack of game time is more so to do with contract issues than anything else, there's also a lot floating around the interweb to back that up, maybe not hardcore evidence, but nothing ever is nowadays.

 

[Jaz]

Is he injured?

 

[Massive Spanner]

People who don't watch games or don't understand the game needs stats to prove their point. I don't. I watch 95% of United games (And not on some shitty stream but live television or a couple of times live) and don't need the help of stats to prove what I see from naked eye. He is most inconsistent, unreliable player in the squad. Brilliant when on form but ordinary when not. That is why the manager of this club doesn't play him in important games and prefers the likes of Park, Valencia or Young over him.

"On form Nani" is the major issue, as it doesn't happens very often. Never has put out good performances on a consistent basis besides that period in the first half of 2010.

No point having a discussion with you as you are clearly biased. Neither am I ready for your tantrum. Bye!

Yeah, either he was rushed back or he was vastly exaggerating his injury, which was basically a cut to the shin. There was no break, nothing which could explain months of poor form other than psychological damage.

Temporarily displacing Valencia and getting the odd game above he and Young sounds an awful lot like Ferguson picks him sometimes and doesn't pick him others, which is exactly what I'd expect of a player who isn't an automatic starter. For the Swansea match immediately after Nani's awful display against Manchester City, he was dropped to the bench - he's clearly not guaranteed starts. If Ferguson thinks he's in form or other players are out of form/injured or that he's favourable against a particular opponent then he'll get games, that's it.

If he was really an automatic starter you wouldn't need to randomly exclude certain periods of time from his career.



They're the same thing.

Heh, so many inaccuracies, but Brophs is right, this thread has descended into stupidity as usual, I'll give it a rest.

 

[Gee Male]

I'm not overly touchy, I'm bored at work, in a thread about Nani, seems legit that I discuss him? Especially when people post false claims and myths. Anyway, for every poster like me who is a fan of him, there is another poster who comes into this thread and has a clear anti-Nani hat on their head too.

if anything the only thing I was "touchy-feely" about is you deciding to bold out a tiny part of my post in order to prove a point which I already had answers to right beside the bolded part in the post. It's a bit odd.

Anyway, I'm getting bored of the multi-quotes (that admittedly, I started ). Whether I have your dumb man crush on nani or whatever is irrelevant, I'm defending a Man Utd player, big whoop, we all have favourites. I've been very critical of his performances this season so far too, by the way, but I think he did more than "Ok" in his last two starts, so it makes no sense that he hasn't played since.

On a personal level (should've added that in), I think it's quite clear that his lack of game time is more so to do with contract issues than anything else, there's also a lot floating around the interweb to back that up, maybe not hardcore evidence, but nothing ever is nowadays.

All fair enough.

For the record, and I know you didn't specifically aim anything at me, but I'm definitely not anti-Nani. My biggest gripe is the way people who play ahead of him automatically get a hard time (Welbeck and Young) seemingly just because they're playing ahead of Nani. Which seems unfair.

Anyway, I'm going to crawl back into my lurking status, far less typing and multi-quoting effort.

 

[Fergus' son]

Welbeck is already on his way to be being better than Nani IMO, and I usually prefer the former to start on the left rather than the latter too.

 

[Massive Spanner]

All fair enough.

For the record, and I know you didn't specifically aim anything at me, but I'm definitely not anti-Nani. My biggest gripe is the way people who play ahead of him automatically get a hard time (Welbeck and Young) seemingly just because they're playing ahead of Nani. Which seems unfair.

Anyway, I'm going to crawl back into my lurking status, far less typing and multi-quoting effort.

To be fair, that's something I'm guilty of.

I actually have no problem with Young playing ahead of Nani under standard circumstances, but I thought the Chelsea situation was a bit mad, seeing as he was just back from injury. It wasn't just Nani I referred to either, I also mentioned him playing ahead of Welbeck and Hernandez being harsh too given their recent form.

But anyway, I'll let it rest, Nani debates are just rinse and repeat nowadays.

 

[Rossa]

Welbeck is already on his way to be being better than Nani IMO, and I usually prefer the former to start on the left rather than the latter too.

Really? I love Welbeck, as a striker, but on the left he produces next to f*** all. He isn't a winger - can't go past a man, can't cross and looks lost there.

 

[Hectic]

Welbeck is already on his way to be being better than Nani IMO, and I usually prefer the former to start on the left rather than the latter too.

You would have Welbeck on the wings over Nani? Mental. He's nowhere near as effective.

 

[Tomalonge]

You would have Welbeck on the wings over Nani? Mental. He's nowhere near as effective.

Agreed. Welbeck's a striker, not a winger.

 

[RonaldoVII]

Really? I love Welbeck, as a striker, but on the left he produces next to f*** all. He isn't a winger - can't go past a man, can't cross and looks lost there.

Exactly, which usually ends up on him playing inside and giving us no width on that flank at all.

 

[KM]

For me our contract policy is good. We give player pay rise when they deserve. Welbeck, Rafael, Clev, Smalling, Hernandez have all received pay rise from their initial amount and all in the last 1 and half years. If Fergie would've rated Nani, then there's no doubt he'd have been more than happy to give him 130k.

Also Welbeck will not be a better winger than Nani, I love Danny but this is too much.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Welbeck is already on his way to be being better than Nani IMO, and I usually prefer the former to start on the left rather than the latter too.

 

[Rossa]

Exactly, which usually ends up on him playing inside and giving us no width on that flank at all.

Indeed - which leads Evra to carry the attack on the left and thus be terribly exposed in his defending duties.

Just look at the difference when Nani came on (was it against Braga?) on the right when he kept wide. Our attack opened up immediately, and Cleverley's cross that led to a goal was mostly down to Nani creating space by going inwards at the right time.

The problem of selling Nani is that I can' see us getting a replacement that would have the same qualities.

 

[Tomalonge]

The problem of selling Nani is that I can' see us getting a replacement that would have the same qualities.

Not for less than £130k p/w, that's for sure. That's what baffles me the most, I was more surprised that he wasn't earning that already, given what other players at the club are on.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Not for less than £130k p/w, that's for sure. That's what baffles me the most, I was more surprised that he wasn't earning that already, given what other players at the club are on.

Agree. All of it is just a bit strange. If he does go I hope it's because of his attitude or something. We need to replace him with someone with genuine technical brilliance. And that will cost high wages.