I think he and Mata would have looked even better with Welbeck in place of Young on the right. Both had a good game today.
Shinji Kagawa
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Or maybe I just believe in glorifying every little pass he makes to make it out like he was brilliant, when he clearly wasn't. He set up one decent chance for Mata when he could have played Rooney through 1v1 and misplaced a pass when he could have set up a sitter for Hernandez. That aside he showed good link up play and some tidy passing. Overall, a good performance and I hope he starts again against City.
Maybe I should ask you why you are so reluctant to praise BUttner? Why do you feel the need to glorify Kagawa's defensive performance instead of praising Buttner for his game?
Was very good, lovely play between him and Mata.
Of course he'll be on the bench for the next few games now
Of course he'll be on the bench for the next few games now
This.
Why oh why does he not play all of time. Breath of fresh air!!
Buttner was good. But it's a completely different situation. Kagawa was a top class player for Dortmund and has shown signs of being a good player at United, albeit not consistently. Buttner is, well, Buttner. It's not like he's ever shown signs of being an important first team player one day, he'll always be a back up at most. Kagawa has, and if this trio continues to get chances and continues to improve, which I have no doubt it would, given the chances, then we can get back to playing great football. Obviously people are going to get excited when they put in arguably our most competent all around performance, with good play and off the ball movement throughout the game. And that's with a patched up defence.
Aye. Would love to see them against City.
That makes no sense and shows you up as something of a hypocrite. Buttner has hardly got chances, he's got even less chances than Kagawa has had yet that's the first thing that gets mentioned for why Kagawa hasn't been doing well. It's quite clear you are judging both of them differently because you think Buttner is crap.
Yeah I agree.
Yes I am judging them differently. Do you judge Van Persie at the same standards you judge Hernandez? Of course not. Kagawa was a proven top class player before he came to United and has shown signs of it here, just not consistently. He hasn't had a run of games and instead we've seen Young and Valencia get loads of games for whatever reason.
On the other hand you have Buttner, who is shite defensively most of the time, wasn't anything more then a decent Eredivise player when we signed him, is more of a winger then left back, so no I don't have high hopes for him. Are you trying to tell me that he's good enough potentially to become United's starting left back? Really?
Can't believe I actually had to explain that to somebody.
Well done for missing the point.
Buttner has a good game. "kagawa made buttner look decent". Now, that is what I call pathetic and a clear reluctance to praise someone who's had a good game in order to exaggerate Kagawa's performance. Also I see how you skirted the fact that Buttner plays far less than Kagawa does because it doesn't suit you.
Shinji to play against City and Bayern. Every time he plays, he shows glimpses of what he's capable of. I don't think we have a player who retains the ball as cleanly as he does. His ball retention under pressure is impressive. It's impossible to understand why he's constantly overlooked. We need players who can keep the ball and use it intelligently. He ticks all the boxes.
i think your problem is you focus too much on end product. It was a good game for him and for being in and out of the team the past few weeks, I'd say it was great outing with want for more quality in final third decisions
It's important to appreciate his off-the-ball movement and what it does for us. When we specifically look at his link up Mata, we get a better glimpse of this. Kagawa, Mata's movement matched with Fletcher's positioning allowed us to create overloads in midfield which negated the pressure West Ham wanted to apply on us. You would see one West Ham midfielder try and get to Mata as Mata checked for the ball. Then Kagawa would occupy the space Mata left which meant the other West Ham midfielder would sometimes be caught in two minds 1) cutting off pass to Rooney 2) tracking Kagawa's movement.
By occupying the space Mata left, Kagawa found an opening for Fellaini/Fletcher/Carrick to find him and he could advance the ball accordingly. The beautiful thing is that both Mata and Kagawa were doing this so in that above paragraph you could interchange their names and it would still work. Such was the work they built between them. Now in terms of end product it may not mean much but it gave us more foothold in midfield and a platform to build our possession in the final third.
@akash02
Agree with most of what you're saying. Good game and good link-up but needs to offer more end-product. Hope to see more of him now with RvP out in a similar line-up. Good understanding with Mata and Rooney and should get the confidence up. I feel he is just too timid in and around the box, needs the confidence to just go for it sometimes.
Agree with most of what you're saying. Good game and good link-up but needs to offer more end-product. Hope to see more of him now with RvP out in a similar line-up. Good understanding with Mata and Rooney and should get the confidence up. I feel he is just too timid in and around the box, needs the confidence to just go for it sometimes.
We could play a 433 against Bayern, with Welbeck and Kagawa sitting in behind Rooney.
Hope to see more of him over the next while.
We need to have a system that allows Kagawa and Mata to link with one another - it's early days, but you could see today that they're on the same wavelength. They're going to thrive with a touchline hugging right winger to stretch the play and then a striker who's constantly foraging in behind to create space.
In that system, it doesn't matter which of them starts on the left and which one plays centrally, as they can both drift. As it happens, I think Kagawa's got better legs, and is more suited to playing wider, if one of them must.
Something like this in the long run:
----------Rooney / RvP / Welbeck
Kagawa---Mata---Valencia / Young / Welbeck
I reckon a top class right winger will be near the top of Moyes' shopping list this summer, btw.
In that system, it doesn't matter which of them starts on the left and which one plays centrally, as they can both drift. As it happens, I think Kagawa's got better legs, and is more suited to playing wider, if one of them must.
Something like this in the long run:
----------Rooney / RvP / Welbeck
Kagawa---Mata---Valencia / Young / Welbeck
I reckon a top class right winger will be near the top of Moyes' shopping list this summer, btw.
I didn't think there was much wrong with his end product today, just that last ball to Hernandez where he could have done better, but he played him in nicely, a bit before then I think. Its hard to not feature much and then come in and I think on that basis it was a good game. He looked to be on the same wavelength as Mata/Rooney, got in to good positions to keep things ticking and was happy to provide the running to open up space. All in all a good display that hopefully he's allowed to build on.
...what?
Want to see him getting goals. He's a 'nice' player to watch, but still feel there's a lot more in his locker.
Oh you're focusing on a little tongue in cheek statement about Buttner? I'm not putting it all down to Kagawa, I'm saying he did a good job in helping him and you compare it to the other side where Rafael received no help from Young, yet Young is seen as a player picked for his defensive abilities.
Why does it matter that Buttner has played less? Of course he will, he's nowhere near good enough for United, especially when we have Evra there. On the other hand, people complain about Kagawa not playing because in his place we always see Young or Valencia playing. You're comparing the playing time of somebody who was a key player for Borussia Dortmund who won back to back titles and won the double in his last season, with somebody who was just an average Eredivisie player. It just makes no sense. I have nothing against Buttner, he seems like a likable person. He's just not good enough, but he played well today yeah.
Anyway, he's got nothing to do with Kagawa, I was just highlighting Kagawa's defensive work which goes unnoticed. He did the same against Arsenal earlier in the season on the left, covering for Evra, and again that game they created nothing from that side. You of course seem to think that it was all down to Buttner putting in a very solid performance suddenly and all of our attacking play was down to Mata and Rooney rather then Kagawa also being a key part of it. It wasn't down to just one of them. It was all 3 of them working well together and all being very talented players.
He showed at Dortmund that he's a pretty good goalscorer and has a good final ball. Think he had something like 14 goals and 20 assists in his last season with them that year. He had a decent amount of goals last season all things considered as well, this season he's just lacked the opportunities/not had the luck because he should have loads more assists if we didn't miss so many sitters from the chances he's made, and lacked the confidence when he did get in goal scoring opportunities. With games he'll gain confidence and he'll look much better I think, and today was just a sign of the potential that our attack has with Kagawa, Mata, Rooney and whoever else the other player is.
He played a couple of lovely through balls that we didn't capitalise on.
I'll be banging my head against a brick wall if he gets marginalised again. In fairness, Moyes name checked him in the after match interview, so I think he was impressed. Don't think he'll start against City, Welbeck will, but he'll play in the hole against Bayern.
Agreed about Shinji and Juan playing with Welbeck/Nani would be even more sexy.
They'll all be moving around, and the pace can from either flank with Nanners/Welbs...with one of RvP or Rooney up top.
City are going to pound us either way...let's give it a shot!
They'll all be moving around, and the pace can from either flank with Nanners/Welbs...with one of RvP or Rooney up top.
City are going to pound us either way...let's give it a shot!
when you've been in and out of the team recently, your confidence isn't necessarily going to be sky high. of course he could do more but that was a performance i feel worth building upon.
Yeah I hope so. I think its fairly certain that Valencia/Welbeck will play wide, but yeah hopefully he's brought in enough ahead of the Bayern game and just in general. Said it before but would be sad if he/nani are the ones to go and valencia and particularly young stay. Just think both have much more they can offer, kagawa just needing time in a system that suits him as today did and nani just needing a proper injury free spell.
I'd like to think that the likes of Young and Valencia will be allowed to leave this summer.
In terms of the City game, I'll have no problem if Moyes goes Welbeck on the left flank, Valencia on the right and Mata in the hole. As you say though, for the rest of the season, would be nice to see Kagawa get his fair share of chances.
He always seem's so close. 1 day it will click for him and he will be sensational. That left footed shot was unlucky not to go in, felt he could have cut onto his right foot though. Just shows how comfortable he is with both feet.
It would be great if we could see less of Young and Valencia and alternate more with Januzaj, Kagawa, Mata and Welbeck for the three spots behind Rooney. I understand why we're playing Valencia on Tuesday but I think we'll look better as a team with at least three of the four mentioned going forward.
The reason he keeps leaning on Young and Valencia is because they offer something different tactically. We saw what happened when we played Januzaj and Mata in the wide positions against Liverpool. Put simply, we need a top class wide man - the ones we have in the squad have had enough chances but flattered to deceive. A quality wide man gives you 15 goals and the same number of assists. Young and Valencia don't come anywhere near that combined!
Agreed though, Valencia suits our needs for Wednesday. I also think that City's left backs can be 'got at' by a direct runner like Tony V. Long run though, they both need to go.
Evil Kagawa has become genuinely evil lately
Not sure really, we have an abundance of attackers at the moment and it's a struggle to get them on the pitch. I think Welbeck will start to play from the flanks for us regularly, and then unless something drastic happens it'll be Kagawa or Mata on the left with Januzaj on the bench.
Evil Kagawa has become genuinely evil lately
His earlier tweet about Rooney ruining his play-a-making is even funnier.
I think though we got that through Welbeck making runs inside, as good as it is to have them provide the width, whats more important imo, is that when Welbeck played midweek and Kagawa this week was that they were willing to run the channels but also run in towards the box from their flank. That's what other teams have, they don't need their wide players playing wide, but they need them to make runs for each other.
As you said with Januzaj and Mata there were issues, some of the players making and some for me of Moyes. Januzaj to me looks like he was told to stay wide, I've no doubt he'd be comfortable running off the ball from outside to inside but Moyes wanted him to keep his width which he did. the real problem came from Mata/Rooney both wanting the ball constantly too feet and neither making a run when the other was on it, with januzaj wide you only had RVP offerring a run.
That's why personally I don't think we need to play a Valencia/Young, maybe the former for his defensive play, but in general its about getting that mix of players coming inside but also running behind. Welbeck showed he could do that against Olymp, Kagawa today showed it and I think we have Januzaj who can do it and Nani who definitely can if given the chance. I'm hoping with Mata and Rooney surely the central two in the league those are the ones we see largely playing, but yh for City I could understand Valencia playing, though I wouldn't mind just going for it with a similar team as today though Young out for Welbeck. Ultimately if Kagawa is to play against Bayern he needs matches.
Impressive comeback for someone who's not had league football for nearly 2 months I think? His touch was a bit washy and he took too much time on the ball, but I genuinely think he was one of the main reasons we controlled this game. He made Fletch look like Scholes.
I mean he had 4 passes that created shooting oppertunities and 2 crosses that ended with efforts on goal. It's not the top stuff that made him look a fantastic player at Dortmund, but what do you expect from a player on the left? Rooney wouldnt be anywhere near as decisive if he was on the left either. He wasnt, when he was picked there. So why would Kagawa be?
Today was a lot better. Creating 6 opportunities and being involved in almost every team move for the rest is plenty.
The problem has been when he's played and not created 3-6 oppertunities.
Played well enough today but I don't think I'd start him against City or Bayern. I think his next game will be against Villa next weekend.
I'd definitely play him against Bayern. If we get through and Kagawa helps save Moyes' job we'd win the Irony Cup.
It has to be a confidence or sharpness issue - he's shown he's a competent finisher before. I completely agree there's more in his locker. I just hope we don't sell him in the summer. He hasn't done himself justice here so far and of course he's partly culpable for that, but it is a worry if we can't find a way to accommodate this type of player.
Just out of interest, how did he perform for Dortmund against Bayern @Balu and @Sphaero ?
#freeshinji #yolo
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