Nani
- Thread starter VJ1762
- Start date
Nani 
What racist hate towards Nani? You're just chatting shit there.
Nani on song is much better than any of our current forwards.
I miss Nani, I think he came a little too early for his time, if he'd been at his peak post 2014-ish with the switch to 4-3-3 for all the big teams, I think he would've excelled even more.
Could beat players on either side, and finish with both feet. Would've been lethal as a wide forward. I still remember how good he was switching flanks with Ronaldo in those early seasons.
Could beat players on either side, and finish with both feet. Would've been lethal as a wide forward. I still remember how good he was switching flanks with Ronaldo in those early seasons.
What the feck has he got on his head?!
Abel Xavier would be proud of that hair
One of my favorite players of SAF's "last squad" so to speak. Inconsistency in form and also within games as far as decision making were his downfalls ultimately, but talent-wise one of the most exciting players we've had. I love that despite having these periods not starting he seemed to just get on with it. You wouldn't hear about him moaning in the press or looking for a move. From that it seems like a guy who just wanted to improve and earn his place. I actually wish he'd had a better career after United, although he was a key member of the Portugual Euro wining side.
His backflip celebration remains one of the most dangerous in football.
I was always more worried he was going to kick someone running behind him in the face.
I've always thought it was only what media said, Fergie didn't talk too much about that as well and we know that had he thought it wasn't appropriate, Nani wouldn't have been doing that at all.
It's never dangerous if you can do it and you have always been doing so.
Makes you wonder what Hargreaves was celebrating with in training
I too miss Nani. Would be a real asset on the right wing in our current team. He had his ups and downs but wasn't appreciated enough for the skill and goals he brought to the team. Scored some real bangers too.
One of my all time favourite United players to watch. He was absolute magic. I remember how annoyed I was every time Valencia started ahead of him on the right but I feel at that stage, Fergie had become very cautious and preferred Valencia's workman like performances.
God I used to love him. What I would give to have someone of his quality on the right in this current team.
For that 18 month period from around 2011 he was one of the best in the world, Nasri stole what should have been nanis award just because he was labelled a diver.
I liked him and remember some moments of absolute quality. A bit inconsistent at times.
The higher ups at the club obviously loved him as they effectively retired the right wing position after he left.
The higher ups at the club obviously loved him as they effectively retired the right wing position after he left.
Calendar year 2010 and early 2011 he was world class for us.
imagine we have not had a right winger since he left.
If he the last of the right footed wingers who was more comfortable on the right side rather than cutting in off the left? Can’t recall anyone of that ilk anymore.
All to play a 3-5-2 that he quickly abandoned, and then complained he didn't have wingers for a 4-3-3. Fecking fraud
wow what great memories.
Goals like that are rare these days
And the crowd in the stadium too!"
Nani on song wasn’t far behind Ronaldo on song. His top level was really something. He pretty much had everything in his locker, and when he became more direct he was nigh on unstoppable, until Carragher! Consistency was ultimately his enemy.
His game against Bayern was unreal. I still remember him sprinting to take a corner kick only to almost faint when he got there. Also remember him obliterating Clichy for pace, and Arsenal fans not believing what they witnessed. Then his dribble for THAT goal, also against Arsenal. Same match perhaps?
Valencia says hello.
Genuine question: Regarding natural ability, ball control, shooting, technique, even decision making, was Nani at say 18 a bigger talent than Ronaldo? One can find many who argue that case, but Ronaldo worked even harder and found consistency at an unprecedented level.
Nani was class...fecked up by letting him go.
Guy was a loon, I like Van Gaal but hated his football and I think 6 years on and 2 managers later we're still trying to recover from the madness that was his transfer dealings.
He sold/released if I remember correctly about 26-28 players in 18 months which is insane. Why the club allowed him to do this is baffling. And replaced them with the likes of Falcao, Rojo, Schweinsteiger, Schneiderlin, DiMaria, Depay and fecking Darmian.
He was absolutely infuriating at times. I think some of that gets glossed over when you look back at a player that coincided with some good teams and success. He was still a very good player, clearly. Everything you would want in a winger but not as consistent as a top attacker should be. I don't think stating that is contrarian or in any way an overrated appraisal of his performances, he simply was a streaky player. You would obviously bite somebody's hand off for a young Nani on our right.
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he ended up at right back.
I think he was treated really unfairly by Fergie after the 10/11 campaign, had to compete with Young mostly for his chance in the first team once Valencia was back, and frozen out entirely during 12/13, only got the odd appearances in cup games due to contract renewal issue, until Fergie had to bring him back for the 2nd leg vs Madrid because Young had been dogshite for months, only to have Cnuty Cakir ended his Utd career that night when he was playing extremely well.
His career with Utd will forever has a huge what if on it. Had about 2 years of consistently good performances from midway of 09/10 until midway 11/12 only to fizzle out due to not being trusted.
His career with Utd will forever has a huge what if on it. Had about 2 years of consistently good performances from midway of 09/10 until midway 11/12 only to fizzle out due to not being trusted.
Its not really insane. His transfers flopped but he still did the right thing by releasing or transferring out the underperforming or old players.
His more notable transfers/releases were:
Ferdinand (36)
Vidic (33)
Evra (33)
Kagawa
Welbeck
Fletcher
Cleverley
Nani
Van Persie
Rafael
Anderson
I mean realistically who would you have kept? None of the players with the exception of Evra and Kagawa maintained their level after leaving us. And even then both of them faded out quickly within a season or two.
LVG had the right idea, we needed to rebuild and to do so at speed. The problem was that his eye for a player had gone and he ended up buying a lot of dross.
Giggs ended up in central midfield - does that mean he wasn't a great winger? Ronaldo was a great right winger for us, but rarely if ever plays that position again. Bale was a left back. Players change positions.
Sometimes a clean out like that isn't good for continuity. I would have kept Rafael, Evra, Nani and possibly RVP, and then fazed them out later. Most of that is in hindsight as the replacements weren't up to scratch. It's not far off that Rafael could still have been part of this team. It's not unusual for players to tail off after leaving one of the biggest clubs in the world, probably due to a lack of motivation.
Him and Nani were contemporaries when he was playing on the wing, so its not like he arrived after Nani, which was what my post was about. The closest I can think of these days is someone like Sancho, who doesn't look ineffective playing on the right despite being right footed.
Then we agree. Not many right footed RW players around. Will be interesting if old fashioned wingplay will become popular again. I always found it fun to watch.
Don't forget he sold Evans which still doesn't make sense to me.
van Gaal fecked it with the clear out.
In his first summer we lost Vidic, Ferdinand and Evra. Vidic he couldn't do anything about, and Ferdinand was over the hill by that point, but I losing him as well meant we lost all of our experience in the centre of defence. Losing Evra on top of that just caused a massive void at the back, that van Gaal could only cover for by playing dull as feck, defensive football.
As well as the above, he also decided to loan out Nani and Hernandez, which meant we'd lost options in attack that we knew could perform in the Premier League, even if they weren't necessarily starting quality. A similar story with Welbeck, and to a lesser extent Kagawa, who although still a bit unproven in the Premier League, was at least more experienced than Di Maria and Falcao, who were the only remotely attacking signings.
We also decided to let Fletcher go in the winter window, which left us with just an aging Carrick as an experienced central midfielder, and similar to the attacking players above, while not starting quality, he let both Cleverley and Anderson go that season.
I'm not saying we should have kept all of these players, but to let 10 players from the senior squad leave in one season is insane management, and he should never have been allowed to do it. This is without discussing the departures of Michael Keane, Zaha and Buttner in that time too.
The fact that this was followed a season later with the departures of Rafael, van Persie, Evans and Janzuaj is even more insane, not to mention that Falcao wasn't kept on, and Di Maria sold after a single season.
Massive clear outs like the one van Gaal was responsible for are FM fantasies.
Agree. Imo, and I’ve said this many times, LVG was far more damaging for us than Moyes.
LVG stripped the leaders from the team and replaced them with shite and ageing players. Whilst simultaneously taking us in a totally different direction stylistically.
When you couple the shocking recruitment and the entirely different style of play together it set us back YEARS and years.
