Nani will reignite our charge to the title

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Thought he did very well - sure some of his flicks and such didn't work out but, that is kind of why we want him right - that different player from Valencia that does those little tricks and such to open up the game.

Good for him, good for United. What a conundrum to have with Park, Valencia, Nani and Giggs. Though with whatever happened to Scholes, maybe Giggs/Park in the middle next week against Pool
 
kietotheworld said:
I'm not being sarcastic, a lot of people consider the players who play off one striker in a 4-3-3 to be wingers.
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Ok, then let's make a distinction (not between 'wingers' and 'inside-forwards' but) between players who are expected to create scoring opportunities and will not be judged by how many thjey've put in the net themselves - and those who will.

Valencia, Giggs, Nani and Park are the best 4 in any squad by that account.
 
Good game by Nani but imho, still not quite back to his form pre-sending off at Villa. That said, the gaffer clearly recognises its better to have both Nani and Valencia on together to provide the width that provides the non-stop service into the middle for Rooney et al and the inevitability of goals that result from their crosses.

The left side however is equally clearly not the side Nani prefers ... but he obviously is more comfortable (read competent) there than Valencia. I thought the move late in the game to replace Valencia with Park and then shift Nani to the right speaks volumes for Fergie's preference were he to have a natural left footed winger with the talent of Nani or Valencia. (giggs can / will play that role but for how long?)

The only real knock on Nani today was his corners ... nothing short of horrendous. I don't think he got the ball past the first defender all day. wtf?)
Anyway, another solid performance and very important win.

"There's Only One United!"
 
Thankfully I avoided the match day thread today. Nani was probably our most effective player 1st half, to think he was getting grief :lol:

There are posters on the caf that have some kind of agenda with Nani and those are the posters that have zero respect in my book. Ego Up being a prime example.

Either way, another good game from Nani today. Done enough to warrant a starting spot against the Scousers imo. Which no doubt he'll relish.
 
I thought at least 2 of his cornes were decent.

On that topic, I thought it wa weird that Nani was taking the corners from the left and Valencia from the right. Were they just hoping to save time?
 
His corners weren't particularly good to be honest. They rarely cleared the first man....he's always better at crossing when he doesn't really think about it too much. His little clips in were superb, but when he dallied a bit he under or over hit them mainly.
 
I dont know why people say Nani was poor in the first half, i thought he was our main attacking threat everytime he got the ball you felt he was going to put in a good delievery and he did more often than not. Second half i thought he was brilliant - not at his best (ala Hull or Asnl) but still a improvement.
 
Mockney said:
His corners weren't particularly good to be honest. They rarely cleared the first man....he's always better at crossing when he doesn't really think about it too much. His little clips in were superb, but when he dallied a bit he under or over hit them mainly.
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I said 2 were decent, not all. What's Beckham's percentage?

But the more interesting point I made above is why were Valencia and he taking corners from the wing they were playing on, and not the opposite one?
 
That's pretty much a given, isn't it? Still, we were better today that before, I thought. We'd possibly look better if Valencia and Nani took the corners from the opposite wings.
 
Grunge said:
Good game by Nani but imho, still not quite back to his form pre-sending off at Villa. That said, the gaffer clearly recognises its better to have both Nani and Valencia on together to provide the width that provides the non-stop service into the middle for Rooney et al and the inevitability of goals that result from their crosses.

The left side however is equally clearly not the side Nani prefers ... but he obviously is more comfortable (read competent) there than Valencia. I thought the move late in the game to replace Valencia with Park and then shift Nani to the right speaks volumes for Fergie's preference were he to have a natural left footed winger with the talent of Nani or Valencia. (giggs can / will play that role but for how long?)

The only real knock on Nani today was his corners ... nothing short of horrendous. I don't think he got the ball past the first defender all day. wtf?)
Anyway, another solid performance and very important win.

"There's Only One United!"
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Valencia has popped up on the left only 3 or 4 times in his United career, but he's never done badly or looked anymore out of place than Nani. Clearly his left foot isnt as strong as Nani's but you dont have to rely on left footed delivery. The only player who does that is Giggs. So its hard to say how competant Valencia is on the left without him playing there a few matches. Because when he's just found himself on the left or played the remainder of one match on the left, he did so pretty well.
 
Mockney said:
He was though. Every time we went forward is was through Nani and Evra, and almost all of our chances in the first half were courtesty of him...then he created the goal in the first minute of the second. Dropped off a little in the last 20 minutes when Berbatov started to liven up and suddenly everyone has their cocks out for him.
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Berbatov was a threat all game long.
 
Ekeke said:
So its hard to say how competant Valencia is on the left without him playing there a few matches. Because when he's just found himself on the left or played the remainder of one match on the left, he did so pretty well.
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My guess is SAF has tried all options in training and practice games and based on what he's seen, has opted to use Nani in real matches because its is a far better (more successful) option. Must speak to competency or lack thereof, no?
 
Red Defence said:
Thought Nani played really well today. Looked relaxed, confident and dangerous on the ball and the team must have been aware of that too. They chose to send most of the attacking play through the left wing rather than the right.
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Honestly I dont know thats true. We play most of our football towards the right wing and often when a ball on to the left winger - especially Nani, is on, the player will turn back towards the middle of the pitch and build towards the right. When Nani was playing wide right and Valencia was on the bench, we continued to concentrate on getting the ball towards the right as well. Its just that sometimes Valencia is content to get the ball on the right and then pass the ball in field and continue the passing move. Some matches all he wants to do is attack the fullback relentlessly and put crosses in, some other matches like most of today he's content to just play the ball about and keep it moving.

Rarely, if ever, is the option of a safe ball to Valencia on the right passed up for another option. But we commonly pass up the oppertunity to play a safe pass out to Nani and turn back in field. Thats not to say that doing that is incorrect as Nani has still been influencial in the final third in the past few matches on the left, but most of our attacking play is concentrated down the right. That doesnt mean we'll always make loads of headway down the right hand side and Nani is a player with such quality when he gets it right that perhaps he doesnt need to be given the ball every time we go forward to still have a big impact on the scoreline.
 
Ekeke said:
Honestly I dont know thats true. We play most of our football towards the right wing and often when a ball on to the left winger - especially Nani, is on, the player will turn back towards the middle of the pitch and build towards the right. When Nani was playing wide right and Valencia was on the bench, we continued to concentrate on getting the ball towards the right as well. Its just that sometimes Valencia is content to get the ball on the right and then pass the ball in field and continue the passing move. Some matches all he wants to do is attack the fullback relentlessly and put crosses in, some other matches like most of today he's content to just play the ball about and keep it moving.

Rarely, if ever, is the option of a safe ball to Valencia on the right passed up for another option. But we commonly pass up the oppertunity to play a safe pass out to Nani and turn back in field. Thats not to say that doing that is incorrect as Nani has still been influencial in the final third in the past few matches on the left, but most of our attacking play is concentrated down the right. That doesnt mean we'll always make loads of headway down the right hand side and Nani is a player with such quality when he gets it right that perhaps he doesnt need to be given the ball every time we go forward to still have a big impact on the scoreline.
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I would agree entirely except I have no fecking clue what the last sentence was about. Maybe I'm simply too busy opening another beer, but that's a given for caftards innit? Innit? :nervous:
 
Grunge said:
My guess is SAF has tried all options in training and practice games and based on what he's seen, has opted to use Nani in real matches because its is a far better (more successful) option. Must speak to competency or lack thereof, no?
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That and, Valencia has always played on the right (or middle) while Nani has far more experience on the left hand side. But there's only one way to get experience and thats to play the matches...

I just dont think its fair to write Valencia off on the left when I've kept a keen eye on the times he's appeared there and he's always done pretty well. Good build up play with team mates, a nice outside of the foot cross (and as Nani has shown, you can use your right foot not just your left foot, to play players in from the left), the dribbling ability to go past players and the speed to come onto his right foot after breaking free. I'm not suggesting he'd be as good as Nani on the left because we havent seen enough of him there to have any definitive answers. And thats my simple point.

Before Park played his central role against Milan a lot of people would dismiss the idea of him playing centrally because we've always chosen other options. And that speaks volumes obviously... And yet he was still brilliant in the middle wasnt he. Until we actually see enough of something its simply too early to draw up definitive answers, but from his play on the left so far - and we've seen little of it - Valencia is decent on the left.
 
Red Defence said:
Thought Nani played really well today. Looked relaxed, confident and dangerous on the ball and the team must have been aware of that too. They chose to send most of the attacking play through the left wing rather than the right.
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Yeah, good game from him.

Big vote of confidence by SAF to leave him on for the full 90 and take Valencia off first (who was having a game to forget, in fairness).

Just goes to show, Nani doesn't have to play on the right to perform.
 
RedSky At Night said:
Thankfully I avoided the match day thread today. Nani was probably our most effective player 1st half, to think he was getting grief :lol:

There are posters on the caf that have some kind of agenda with Nani and those are the posters that have zero respect in my book. Ego Up being a prime example.

Either way, another good game from Nani today. Done enough to warrant a starting spot against the Scousers imo. Which no doubt he'll relish.
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Is that your new nickname for me?

How childish.

I like it though. Could have been a lot worse :cool:
 
radd said:
I would agree entirely except I have no fecking clue what the last sentence was about. Maybe I'm simply too busy opening another beer, but that's a given for caftards innit? Innit? :nervous:
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:lol: Well Nani has been making goals in recent games without us having a clear tactic of trying to find him as much as possible on the left and building our play towards that goal, like it could be suggested we did with him against City and Arsenal when he was on the right. Or the way we do it week after week with Valencia on the right.

Perhaps if we changed our style and did have a clear focus on "get the ball to Nani on the left" he might have wasted the ball more often than he did today and take the shine off his overall performance. On the other side of the coin he may have had more quality deliveries into the box and we could have scored more goals. Simple fact is we dont know what would happen if we looked to play through him on the left as much as we usually look to play through the player on the right. Could have been beneficial, could have been detrimental, so I'm not suggesting we should change whats currently happening when we're doing pretty well with what we're doing already. I just wanted to highlight what I've seen with happening this season with Nani on the left as opposed to Valencia on the right. I think there's just more trust in Valencia making the right choices going forward so he's seen as our main choice to work the ball to. And of course when Nani is playing on the right, Valencia isnt playing, so Nani immediately receives that role off him and so he receives the ball more often when open and in space on that side.
 
Ekeke said:
:lol: Well Nani has been making goals in recent games without us having a clear tactic of trying to find him as much as possible on the left and building our play towards that goal, like it could be suggested we did with him against City and Arsenal when he was on the right. Or the way we do it week after week with Valencia on the right.

Perhaps if we changed our style and did have a clear focus on "get the ball to Nani on the left" he might have wasted the ball more often than he did today and take the shine off his overall performance. On the other side of the coin he may have had more quality deliveries into the box and we could have scored more goals. Simple fact is we dont know what would happen if we looked to play through him on the left as much as we usually look to play through the player on the right. Could have been beneficial, could have been detrimental, so I'm not suggesting we should change whats currently happening when we're doing pretty well with what we're doing already. I just wanted to highlight what I've seen with happening this season with Nani on the left as opposed to Valencia on the right. I think there's just more trust in Valencia making the right choices going forward so he's seen as our main choice to work the ball to. And of course when Nani is playing on the right, Valencia isnt playing, so Nani immediately receives that role off him and so he receives the ball more often when open and in space on that side.
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There's a reason for that though.

If Nani can put in a run of performances as consistent as Valencia did earlier this season, then I think you'll see the team look for Nani a lot more than they do at the moment.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
There's a reason for that though.

If Nani can put in a run of performances as consistent as Valencia did earlier this season, then I think you'll see the team look for Nani a lot more than they do at the moment.
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I agree. But also because Nani on the left and Nani on the right are two different animals in terms of keeping hold of the ball and moving forwards. He made more correct choices on the right so perhaps when played on the right again, even if Valencia was on the left for example, Nani might be given the ball as soon as he's free more often. Its probably, usually for the best that Valencia is given the ball more often deeper anyway as he's less likely to lose the ball. While Nani will do his best work if given the ball around the box.
 
R_Nick said:
I think Valencia was seem by Fulham as our predominant outlet and was targeted as such which left us a bit more room on the left. Nani took advantage of that and played very well, making a number of splendid crosses.
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TBH Valencia was just pretty shit today. Couldnt get past his players nor any was he able to pull off one single useful cross.

Nani had a really good game today, of course he had his moments but I can live with that as long as he keeps performing like that.
 
R_Nick said:
The thing is I can understand people reaching the 'I've had it with him' mentality over the last few years, but how they can still make such comments after how he's played overall this season is what I don't get. He's a United player, we should all be overjoyed that he's turned himself around, not being more concerned with having been wrong on the internet.
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Very good post I think.
 
Very strange game for our wingers.

Did Fulham actually play a right back today? I don't think I've ever seen a team give an opposition winger so much space time after time after time after time again.

Valencia couldn't get into space, Nani couldn't have had more space if he was trying. It was hard to know whether it was the two wingers' respective positioning which saw such a huge difference, or whether it was somewhat of a deliberate tactic for Fulham to try and shut down Valencia.

For all the space Nani got into today, I was very disappointed with his end delivery.
 
He's getting better and better, you can see the confidence has returned to his game, his touch is really good and he works really hard. He seems to have a good understanding with Rooney and provides some good crosses, I am just waiting for one of his cut in side screamers, hopefully next wekk against the dippers.
 
MadDogg said:
Very strange game for our wingers.

Did Fulham actually play a right back today? I don't think I've ever seen a team give an opposition winger so much space time after time after time after time again.

Valencia couldn't get into space, Nani couldn't have had more space if he was trying. It was hard to know whether it was the two wingers' respective positioning which saw such a huge difference, or whether it was somewhat of a deliberate tactic for Fulham to try and shut down Valencia.

For all the space Nani got into today, I was very disappointed with his end delivery.
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I've only seen the second half but thought his delivery was fine.

Crossing aside, I was really pleased to see his passing game was much improved from mid-week. I don't remember him wasting the ball once.

Lovely assist too. Perfect weight and direction.
 
Game of opinions I guess. I thought Nani did ok, but he wasted plenty of good opportunities. His corners were, as always atrocious. They gave him so much space, he just didn't always make the most of it
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I've only seen the second half but thought his delivery was fine.
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Well you really need to watch the first half because he was close to useless TBH. The TV Muppets summed him up perfectly, all the skill in the world but no end product. Its getting very frustrating watching him these days, absolutely no consistency. A pretty good player down the right but he just isn't comfortable on the left wing.
 
He created a lot, but was equally as wasteful. It was a mixed performance for sure.
 
mjs020294 said:
Well you really need to watch the first half because he was close to useless TBH. The TV Muppets summed him up perfectly, all the skill in the world but no end product. Its getting very frustrating watching him these days, absolutely no consistency. A pretty good player down the right but he just isn't comfortable on the left wing.
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I'll be watching the first half shortly. It sounds as though we were a bit shit but I'm a glutton for punishment.
 
mjs020294 said:
Well you really need to watch the first half because he was close to useless TBH. The TV Muppets summed him up perfectly, all the skill in the world but no end product. Its getting very frustrating watching him these days, absolutely no consistency. A pretty good player down the right but he just isn't comfortable on the left wing.
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Sorry but I don't agree with that at all, I though his first half was good as well.
 
mjs020294 said:
Well you really need to watch the first half because he was close to useless TBH. The TV Muppets summed him up perfectly, all the skill in the world but no end product. Its getting very frustrating watching him these days, absolutely no consistency. A pretty good player down the right but he just isn't comfortable on the left wing.
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I thought he put in a lot of good balls in the first half. Some shit ones too, of course.
 
Nani has the talent but he is a lot happier playing down the right. I am sure he would gain confidence and play a lot better on the right wing. I am not so sure he will ever settle and play his best football on the left though.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I'll be watching the first half shortly. It sounds as though we were a bit shit but I'm a glutton for punishment.
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We definitely weren't shit, we were all over them for over half an hour of it, and Nani was at the heart of a lot of good stuff - a nice delivery from a free kick, a nice delivery with his left foot which shows he can do it, a great cross in for a header for Berbatov that should've been a goal and then another couple of crosses that were nearly chances.

And he didn't give away many simple 5 yard passes, although it seems like a lot of people remember the volume of crosses that didn't create chances forgetting how many good ones there were.
 
Brwned said:
We definitely weren't shit, we were all over them for over half an hour of it, and Nani was at the heart of a lot of good stuff - a nice delivery from a free kick, a nice delivery with his left foot which shows he can do it, a great cross in for a header for Berbatov that should've been a goal and then another couple of crosses that were nearly chances.

And he didn't give away many simple 5 yard passes, although it seems like a lot of people remember the volume of crosses that didn't create chances forgetting how many good ones there were.
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Good stuff.

Definitely need to watch it to make my own mind up. Once again, the range of opinions on here is enormous!
 
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