Shinji Kagawa

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LR7 said:
Kagawa and Adnan might both benefit from interchanging freely rather than occupying relatively fixed positions. Kagawa, Rooney and Januzaj as the three AMs in behind RvP or Welbeck could be a brilliant combination as all three can interchange and play anywhere. I think our play would be less rigid and predictable with a good blend of crossing from wide areas (mainly from Evra and Rafa) and also playing between the lines more centrally, which we've struggled with this season because imo of the almost obsessive focus on width and the inflexibility of Valencia.
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I've heard this expression used lots of times at our club referring to many forward combinations but it has never actually worked out like that. Even when we had Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney we always kept a fairly stiff formation with their roles very rarely interchanging with each others.


The reality of it is that it doesn't require much of an understanding between those three players as the actual movement and switching is fairly simple, the trouble it creates is further back and the midfield finding the outlet and reading the play ahead of them both in attacking terms and knowing what areas to cover defensively and the fullbacks knowing whether they will be supported if they attack or not.

It provides too many complications as to who should drop back and defend and who should stay in attack, is it the one who has switched wide or is it the one who started wide? What if a play breaks down and there is a fullback and a winger attacking one of our flanks and we've got two players central?


There's a reason teams play formations and give players roles and duties in certain areas of the fields and there's a reason why it's only ever one player given a free role because you can have 5 players around him aware of their duties should he move out of position and into theirs. Having 3 players in free roles is chaos.
 
http://www.manutd.com/en/News-And-F...working-on-strength-at-manchester-united.aspx

Shinji strives to improve

Shinji Kagawa looks increasingly at home in the Barclays Premier League but he insists his acclimatisation to the English game is not yet complete.

The Japanese playmaker earned praise for his second-half display against Swansea at the weekend, pulling the creative strings after moving into a central role and making our Man of the Match shortlist.

Now in his second season at United following his switch from Bundesliga heavyweights Borussia Dortmund, the 24-year-old admits he’s still adapting to the greater physical demands of the English top flight.

"I think I can still improve my strength," he told ManUtd.jp. "I’m not the tallest or biggest player so I have to move my body more.

"Smaller players in the Premier League are very good at using their bodies [to get past the opposition] and that’s what I will continue to do.

"I realise the Premier League is a very tough league and I know I have to be stronger."

Shinji may be a perfectionist but he’s certainly made a positive impression on United’s new coaching staff this season.

"He’s such an intelligent and creative player that he makes everybody around him play well,” assistant manager Steve Round said.

"You can always find him, he always retains the ball, can turn and go forward, is intelligent and his creativity is terrific.

"He’s a really good kid as well. He has a great sense of humour and a tremendous work ethic. There’s never a moment’s problem with him because he’s such a terrific professional."

The training sessions led by Round and David Moyes have been demanding this season but Shinji is enjoying them.

He said: "It has been quite hard work and training is fairly intense because there have been so many games recently, so we have had to concentrate on practising in a very short period of time. But the sessions have been very good."
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Interesting read, good to see that he is still striving to improve himself rather than resting on his laurels.
 
Pexbo said:
I've heard this expression used lots of times at our club referring to many forward combinations but it has never actually worked out like that. Even when we had Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney we always kept a fairly stiff formation with their roles very rarely interchanging with each others.


The reality of it is that it doesn't require much of an understanding between those three players as the actual movement and switching is fairly simple, the trouble it creates is further back and the midfield finding the outlet and reading the play ahead of them both in attacking terms and knowing what areas to cover defensively and the fullbacks knowing whether they will be supported if they attack or not.

It provides too many complications as to who should drop back and defend and who should stay in attack, is it the one who has switched wide or is it the one who started wide? What if a play breaks down and there is a fullback and a winger attacking one of our flanks and we've got two players central?


There's a reason teams play formations and give players roles and duties in certain areas of the fields and there's a reason why it's only ever one player given a free role because you can have 5 players around him aware of their duties should he move out of position and into theirs. Having 3 players in free roles is chaos.
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I think this idea is fallacious. It's only chaos when the forward players do not have a flexible system in which they are allowed to interchange and switch positions while keeping the defensive aspects of the game in mind. When the defensive responsibilities are not accounted for then this is where you have chaos. There has to be some plan that players adhere to so they know how and where to recover their positioning when a possession is lost. There are systems which allow for a free role used by one player. There are other systems which allow players to roam but usually, those players are instructed what to do in terms of defensive transitions and overall defensive shape. If a coach is abandoning these aspects, he's not doing his job.

The best example which illustrates your point is how RDM used Mata, Hazard and Oscar. They were freely allowed to interchange but there was no emphasis put on how each one should recover their positions defensively. It wasn't until Benitez came in did we see more discipline assigned to the likes of Hazard and Oscar.

Having players roaming isn't necessarily chaos. We allowed for Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo to roam but all to different extents. Ronaldo was given the most leeway while imo, Rooney was tasked with being the most disciplined and Tevez somewhere in the middle. Keep in mind our tactics werent always the same in that period either. Some games it appeared we set up our play to be akin to a 4-4-2 setup. Other games it was more of a 4-3-3/4-2-4 situation. Not sure you can say we were rigid when Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo were here. Those are 3 players who all like to move.
 
Soon he'll be as big as Rio!

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Freak said:
Im just so bloody frustrated that we benched him for ashley fecking young.
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Especially as it'll probably also lead to Adnan not playing as well and us not getting as much out of him. With him in the middle no one is gonna really provide runs from wide, with Kagawa there Januzaj could have provided that movement. We've also lost a lot off passing ability in Fletcher, though at least that is more understandable. I just think we should have gone for one of them coming in, not both.
 
I just don't think he has the speed to succeed. The PL is so speedy and you often see Kagawa make mistakes because it all goes so fast. Don't think he's got what it takes and he never proved anything else either.
 
Successful said:
I just don't think he has the speed to succeed. The PL is so speedy and you often see Kagawa make mistakes because it all goes so fast. Don't think he's got what it takes and he never proved anything else either.
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That's really stupid.
 
Spoony said:
I don't think pace is the issue, but he does need time on the ball.
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Noway. He's one of our players that doesn't. He's technically superb and thinks faster than most in our team. He actually thrives in a lack of space. His issues at united are of fitting in and his mentality.
 
amolbhatia100 said:
Noway. He's one of our players that doesn't. He's technically superb and thinks faster than most in our team. He actually thrives in a lack of space. His issues at united are of fitting in and his mentality.
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Well it seems that we've been watching different players. Personally I'd get rid of him this summer and all.
 
Spoony said:
Well it seems that we've been watching different players. Personally I'd get rid of him this summer and all.
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Not saying he's been great. But the reason for his not shining like he did at Dortmund isn't pace.
 
Just sell the bloke. If we're not going to utilize him properly by giving him a fair run in Rooney's absence, sell him, so he can find form in time for his World Cup campaign.
 
amolbhatia100 said:
Not saying he's been great. But the reason for his not shining like he did at Dortmund isn't pace.
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No, I didn't say it was a lack of pace, but he's definitely struggled in the PL were games are congested in the midfield. And not great? He's not even been average.
 
Spoony said:
No, I didn't say it was a lack of pace, but he's definitely struggled in the PL were games are congested in the midfield. And not great? He's not even been average.
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Really? I think people overrate how bad he's been. At worse he keeps the ball very well but doesn't influence it directly. Personally I'd say he's been average at worst but relative to his actual technical ability he's been poor.

Anyway that's semantics. I think he's a quality talent but needs to either learn to influence games from out wide or leave. He's been very good whenever he plays through the centre but Rooney is better in that position. And like I said, he has to stop relying on us opening teams up through simple short passes, it's not going to happen, we don't play that way. He has to apart and learn to impose himself more on games individually. I wouldn't like to see him go. I'd always prefer a technical player like him to a young or Valencia because they're better to watch.
 
He's probably one of the players in the league the least capable of making a difference from the bench.
 
Spoony said:
I don't think pace is the issue, but he does need time on the ball.
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No, he normally doesn´t. The pace argument never held much ground and neither does him needing time on the ball. He thrived the most in a system with a way higher emphasis on pace and quick passing than any EPL team, hell arguably any team on the planet.
 
Sphaero said:
No, he normally doesn´t. The pace argument never held much ground and neither does him needing time on the ball. He thrived the most in a system with a way higher emphasis on pace and quick passing than any EPL team, hell arguably any team on the planet.
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Why has he been such a flop then?
 
amolbhatia100 said:
Really? I think people overrate how bad he's been. At worse he keeps the ball very well but doesn't influence it directly. Personally I'd say he's been average at worst but relative to his actual technical ability he's been poor.

Anyway that's semantics. I think he's a quality talent but needs to either learn to influence games from out wide or leave. He's been very good whenever he plays through the centre but Rooney is better in that position. And like I said, he has to stop relying on us opening teams up through simple short passes, it's not going to happen, we don't play that way. He has to apart and learn to impose himself more on games individually. I wouldn't like to see him go. I'd always prefer a technical player like him to a young or Valencia because they're better to watch.
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Yes, the way we play is awesome.

But yeah, I'm of the opinion we should ship him on. It's retarded to expect him to change his style of play to fit in an archaic system that has us stuck at 7th in the league. None of the teams above us play like us.
 
adexkola said:
Yes, the way we play is awesome.

But yeah, I'm of the opinion we should ship him on. It's retarded to expect him to change his style of play to fit in an archaic system that has us stuck at 7th in the league. None of the teams above us play like us.
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Oh I hate the way we play. But Moyes loves over reliance on width even more than fergie did in his latter years. So we have to get used to it.
 
Spoony said:
Why has he been such a flop then?
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The short version: He does not suit United´s system and has mentality issues.

For the long version: see some of the posts I made in the past about the topic.
 
You'd think that Rooney and RVP and Nani out, the logical thing would be to play Kagawa.

I know he hasn't been good this season but the Young and Valencia combo has never worked. Never. Kagawa has been less shit so I think he deserves more playing time.
 
Alienating Kagawa from the starting XI can prove to be Moyes' biggest mistake, and maybe even become the fatal blow to our club. If RVP is past it and never truly recovers and Rooney leaves, then we're fecked beyond any help. We'll effectively lose the only area of the pitch where we are world class, apart from the GK position. Neither Welbeck nor Hernandez are good enough to carry us with the backing of our shite midfield. Trying to push Kagawa back into the starting XI might be too late then. His confidence will be shattered, he'll have to start adjusting to the PL all over again, and to help him out, he'll have a mediocre side that plays mediocre football, under a mediocre coach.

I feel that Moyes' managing has been very "one step forward, two steps back". He'll fix our defensive problems one game, but then collapse in every other aspect. He'll include a youngster to the team and motivate Rooney into playing good football, but then counter by making the whole team play defensive, gutless, anti-football.

In another thread, someone wrote that Mourinho was an idiot for alienating Mata. Well, at least Chelsea are playing good football and winning. We've done neither under Moyes. That's why the exclusion of Kagawa seems so mindblowingly stupid. Moyes knew that Kagawa was a regular in the starting XI under Fergie and played well in the last third of last season, looking sharper for every game. Moyes could see with his own eyes that Kagawa was one of the best players in training(according to Rio). Yet despite this, Kagawa had to wait for more than a month to play his first competitive game. That's strike one for me. He then continues to shift him around and/or sub him off, even when he's playing well, while never giving him a proper run of games. That's strike two. And then, despite RVP and Rooney being out, he's still not giving him the chance. Strike three, Moyes. You're officially ruining one of our most talented and promising players.

The best(worst) part about the Kagawa saga, is that it perfectly illustrates Moyes' football philosophies. Despite playing below par, Kagawa has played a central part in pretty much all our good offensive performances this season(Sociedad home, Leverkusen away, 1st half vs WBA home, 2nd half vs Swansea home). I cannot remember a single game or even half in the PL or CL this season where we've played good attacking football and Kagawa hasn't been one of our stand out players. And Moyes knows this. He's not stupid. He's just not comfortable playing that sort of football, because it leaves some of the games a bit too open for his taste.

Want to know Moyes' philosophy? Rewatch our loss to WBA. Look at the first half, and see how brilliant we look going forward. Moyes saw the very same thing, yet decided he wanted to change that. He took off Kagawa for Januzaj, and we effectively lost the game. Even if Januzaj was playing well, you have to understand that he was playing individually well. You can't blame Januzaj for our loss, but you can surely blame the exclusion of Kagawa. As it's been stated several times before: he's a multiplier. Moyes removed this multiplier and asked the players to sharpen up defensively(WBA created 2 dangerous chances in the 1st half). Our momentum was completely gone, and we didn't wake up before we were behind. Moyes lost us that game. Moyes was too cowardly to continue attacking like we did in the first half. And that cost us the game. Or worse: it cost us the season. Because it's obvious that he's kept the same ideologies in the other games as well. The WBA game just illustrates it more clearly.

Had Moyes followed Fergie's vision of fluid attacking football with Kagawa playing an important role, then things would arguably have looked much better now. The exclusion of Kagawa means so much more than the exclusion of an individual. And that is what annoys me the most about Moyes. It all leads back to the pointless football we've played this season. It's as if he's trying to implement a small club approach to a big club. It just doesn't work.

I'm starting to see why opposing fans were so happy when Moyes took over our club. He's just not a winner. United is too big for him. He deserves more time, but I really don't see how he's going to turn this around now.
 
Didn't get his exclusion at all today. Yes he hasn't been good but he's been no worse than Valencia/Young, and unlike them he largely hasn't played his position, certainly not as consistently as they have. And unlike them he could actually facilitate us getting more out of those around him. We finally have a player, playing as a united attacker should in Januzaj and instead of combining him with a player who could play on the same wavelength as him we drop that player and play him right up the pitch where he's out of the action.

Kagawa as an a/m could give someone like Carrick a player who will offer a short option and let us play faster through the middle by giving an option, he can also make use of Januzaj's runs, as Januzaj can make use of knowing that there's someone who will see his run and be able to pick him out likewise Welbeck. We can still use one of the wide players for constant width, but leaving him out today and lining up as we did, imo, just hindered the three good players we actually have available atm, carrick, januzaj and Weleck.

People can talk about defensive frailties but Kagawa is a hard worker and as a spare man defensively can be useful. It's different where he has a set man to mark as on the left, but as the third midfielder he can nip it and help close down rather than have to actually track someone. And additionally, he can help keep the ball better and use it better when we have it.
 
Ash_G said:
Kagawa as an a/m could give someone like Carrick a player who will offer a short option and let us play faster through the middle
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This bit exactly. If you think back to last season, Carrick's choice of pass was in between the opposition midfielders to Rooney/RVP/Kagawa who'd then turn and bring others in to play. Today, we missed that option through the middle relying entirely on a slow build up, with the ball moved out to the wing. Welbeck is not a natrual #10 as people have pointed out, and Januzaj was further up the pitch. Kagawa would have been ideal.
 
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