Shinji Kagawa

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Drainy said:
Textbook "you're only as good as your last game" in football.
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No not at all, Southampton away and Spurs at home in the first half were performances identical to the one today. Put it this way there's only 2 games this season where from memory I'd give him a rating higher than a 6, away to Everton on the first day and at home to Galatasary
 
Not his day, but I don't think you can play Kagawa the way we did today. He was forced to come so deep at times, and that just isn't his game.

I just hope we're not doing what we did with Anderson...taking a guy who's bread and butter is to slice open a defence/pitch in on the attacking and slot him into central midfield.

Don't think he'll be involved next week. That injury has clearly stalled his settling into the side. I'm sure he'll have an effect soon enough though. He'll come out of his shell with the likes of Nani Rooney and Anderson around him (if we get the opportunity to play those guys with him that is)
 
He's obviously a talented footballer, but it's going to take awhile for him to settle in and for United to figure out how and where to use him best. Fortunately for us, he's probably the player that we are least dependent on because of how many other options we have that can take his place, which means he'll have time to adapt.
 
Can't believe we're not trying him off the left coming infield like Silva and Mata does. To me it's the most obvious place for him if we want two other forwards on the pitch.
 
Was meh today but still adapting and will be a quality player for us.
 
I know I will get slagged off for this but could this signing possibly turn into the next Berbatov - a player whom everyone can see is very talented, but possibly just doesnt/wont fit into our system?

Early days for sure but lets see how it pans out. If we keep trying to play him as a CM in a 4-4-2 then I can see it going that way.
 
The pitch was poor there tonight, could see the ball bouncing all over the place. Not suited to someone who caresses the ball like him and places most of his passes along the ground.
 
Sixpence said:
The pitch was poor there tonight, could see the ball bouncing all over the place. Not suited to someone who caresses the ball like him and places most of his passes along the ground.
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Ah, fortunately Persie didn't hind behind that when pulling the ball down. Can't we just say he wasn't great? I mean, 'it was the pitch's fault'? Really?
 
Brwned said:
I thought it was pretty clear he was playing at the tip of the diamond and we played a possession-based style to get the best out of him, Welbeck, Cleverley, Scholes and co. It was set up for him, he just got hounded off the ball most of the times it was played into him in the hole so he came deep to try and influence things. That's not the team's fault that's his fault and people shouldn't be making excuses for him. I'm sure he's surprised at the physical side of the game here hindering his play with his back to goal as much as it has.
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As I said a few posts above the one you quoted. I also don't think he had a good game. But 2nd game from beeing back after 2 months out and against a very physical side.

But I still think that this whole diamond thing we try out this season hasnt quite the shape it should have or our team isnt used to it enough as of yet. (although I really like the idea of it)
Our set up was a bit strange anyway. It seemed to me that we changed a lot between playing a 4-4-2 and the diamond. Especially Rafael, who had a great game, changed a lot between the wing and CM.
BTW in the first half I thought Kagawa played some nice stuff as well and most of it was when he acutally was playing further up front.
 
We played a diamond, with Rafael naturally drawn towards the right side of the pitch.

And Kagawa's not settled yet. Needs a run of games in our best line-up off the left.
 
Disappointing performance. He had some very good moments but faded in the second half and that's what most supporters will remember. How you finish in the game. We've seen the value of having him in the team when he's further forward and can link up with other players (performance against WBA).

As others have highlighted, I think he's not dealt with the physicality just yet but it's not a bulking up issue. It's really just an anticipation and body position issue. Silva and Mata haven't really bulked up since they've arrived. They have simply learned how to play off the opposition's physicality and it shows with the way they play. They shift their runs and how they approach the ball. They're also adept at reading their opponents and with a simple body feint, they glide past defenders like it's no issue at all

Redcafe is going to have to be patient with Kagawa. The team clearly isn't used to his style of play. He hasn't fully adjusted to PL opposition and we don't know how to best utilize him in the team. We know where his best position but all those aforementioned factors make it difficult to play him there consistently. In time, I'm sure he'll show his class here but it definitely will require patience. Something I've felt some fans clearly lack. I'm very confident he will come good for us. I've seen enough to know he will. Just a matter of when and how.
 
I keep getting confused with Cleverley and Kagawa on TV
 
Theon said:
Agreed, I really don't understand why we play it like that. Galatasaray away is the only game I think we played it properly and Powell was in acres of space in that AM position with a lot of freedom.

Bar that game it has been exactly as you describe.
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Yeah I don't get it either, for seeing out a game when we have the right players it cou/canld work but as. A standard formation I don't think it looks right. Like I said a 433 would seem a more natural fit if we wanted to play a more possession based game or at least just restrict the way the two flanking midfielders are allowed to attack.

I didn't think kagawa was at his best which did contribute but I really don't think the system worked in his favour at all. If anything with the game being quite tight and physical you'd want to give kagawa more freedom to find space, this system forced him to come short to help scholes and made him easier to track.
 
Ruud10 said:
Started well. Faded. Not a serious concern.
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This has happened in like every single game he has played for us. I'd say it's definitely a concern. Whether it's lack of fitness or lack of effort after 60 minutes we may as well be playing with ten men. He's a very gifted footballer but at the moment isn't playing good enough. Settling in this season so he has time on his side but he'll need to be a lot better next year. Occasionally he played some ridiculously lazy and careless passes in dangerous positions. I do think he'll turn it around but he has not been anywhere near as influential as I thought he would be.
 
Its the FA cup people, notorious for being a different kind of football to the league, especially with an Allardyce team. Its often a battle or struggle. Kagawa has been here 5 minutes, in that time we may have seen he hard to fit into the team but we've certainly seen he's one of the better footballers in our squad.

When he settles in and has a good run he'll be ace I reckon. Just hope we don't waste him.
 
People are definitely too harsh on him. He is just back from injury, and still I thought he played fairly good in first half. I was disappointed too with him in second half, but you would expect him to fade.

Those who are saying he is yet to play good game for us are ridiculous. He was our best player on the pitch against Everton, one of the best against Fulham and Galata, and played excellent in second half against Tottenham(we stopped playing after he was subbed off). As for statistics, he scored more goals than both Young and Valencia combined, and assisted 3 so far(same as those two) eventhough Young and Valencia played probably double more minutes than he did.

He hasn't played too much so far, but he has definitely some good games behind himself.
 
shaggy said:
This has happened in like every single game he has played for us. I'd say it's definitely a concern. Whether it's lack of fitness or lack of effort after 60 minutes we may as well be playing with ten men. He's a very gifted footballer but at the moment isn't playing good enough. Settling in this season so he has time on his side but he'll need to be a lot better next year. Occasionally he played some ridiculously lazy and careless passes in dangerous positions. I do think he'll turn it around but he has not been anywhere near as influential as I thought he would be.
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Shaggy I'm not sure if you know this but at Dortmund, Kagawa was subbed off a lot in the second half. Why? For whatever reason his performance levels would gradually drop. Due to dortmund's style of play they usually wrap up matches pretty early.

At the same time, he has completed 90 minutes on several occasions. Just wanted to point out he also was subbed regularly and that what we're seeing is no irregular scenario. Nonetheless, I don't think we need to worry. It's just something to be mindful of.
 
Ash_G said:
Yeah I don't get it either, for seeing out a game when we have the right players it cou/canld work but as. A standard formation I don't think it looks right. Like I said a 433 would seem a more natural fit if we wanted to play a more possession based game or at least just restrict the way the two flanking midfielders are allowed to attack.

I didn't think kagawa was at his best which did contribute but I really don't think the system worked in his favour at all. If anything with the game being quite tight and physical you'd want to give kagawa more freedom to find space, this system forced him to come short to help scholes and made him easier to track.
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Spot on Ash. Haven't discussed tactics with you in a while but this formation just doesn't work for us at the moment. You literally have to have all the pieces working right to make it at least somewhat effective.

Juventus use a similar type of system with a 3-5-2 when attacking and a 4-3-3 when defending. It's quite fascinating to watch really. Vidal and Marchisio play further up to Pirlo while either Vucinic or Quagriella (however you spell his name) drop into the second striker role. It makes for a very fluid attack as they have the support of the bombing fullbacks to help out on the flanks. Asamoah performs this role admirably and it's a very taxing role.

We don't do anything remotely close to this but it seems to be the idea at times. It just didn't work and it definitely restricted the amount of space Kagawa had to work with. I think the other big thing is we don't give Kagawa the ball in the situations he would like. I've noticed several times that kagawa asks for the ball and receives it seconds later than when he wanted it. When you come against a very physical outfit like West Ham, those few seconds mean just about everything in your attacking momentum. That being said, the lad still had a disappointing performance for me. Good thing is, he just returned from injury and I'm confident he'll have better days.

We should use a 4-3-3 like you said. I see that as a better alternative to the diamond. Whatever we're trying to accomplish with it, it's just not working. If we want it to work, we'll have to play it much more often rather than occasionally.
 
People are overreacting. He was fine last week against Wigan and West Ham is a tough place to go for any player, when he's still striving for fitness and adjusting to his surroundings, which Kagawa clearly still is.
 
home game against pool is up next.
does anyone want to see him start behind Rvp?
I would like to see that. I am not someone who wants Chicha to start along with Rvp. Would much rather have a 4-4-1-1, with Rvp and Shinji upfront.
 
Most of our players aren't intelligent or confident enough to pick him up when he makes room for himself in that split second. Additionally, against West Ham, he was asked to come back deep when clearly he's not that kind of player. But whenever he did so he pulled a Hammer back with him till the end of their half, whether it was Diarra or someone else. I remember him making a few intelligent runs to drag his marker wide to make more space for his team-mates

Clearly, Sam Allardyce saw him as one of our key players and got his team to man-mark him tightly. We need to improve our ability and tempo in our passing and movement of the ball. Most of our players are not good enough in that department, hence why we usually lose whenever we face a team that's good in pressing off the ball.
 
The system that people are criticising here wasn't bad when Rooney was playing it. Notable performances against Newcastle.
 
I woke up expecting the worst. Seems like I wasn't wrong... Seriously, what is up with this insane scapegoating? To the Kagawa critics:

1. Did you actually watch the first half? He was one of our best players out there, playing a major part in 2 of our 3 biggest chances.

2. Do you think the rest of the team played any better in the second half? I don't. I thought the whole team was dire after the break. This obviously affected Kagawa's play as well.

It is beyond ridiculous to single out Kagawa from last night's game. In the second half, he wasn't any worse than say Scholes, Welbeck and Rafael. The whole team flow was gone. We played bad as a team. Nevertheless, everyone screamed for Kagawa to be the first one off the field, thinking he was the one who ruined everything. What exactly did he ruin? It's not like the rest of the team played perfect passes and created chance after chance, only to have Kagawa jump in and ruin everything.

People need to learn what a collective failure is. The second half last night, was a good example of this. It is easy to blame 1 or 2 players for everything when things aren't going well, but it's never the solution. That is why you find so many people disagreeing with Fergie, the greatest manager of all time.
 
He's still settling not only with the team's style of play, but also the quick style of the premiership. He's playing lots of these cautious passes to keep possession currently. Slowly he'll get comfortable and start playing the riskier ones.
 
Kagawa's biggest problem is that he's been closed down so quickly and has had defenders on his back all the time, he can't hold up the ball and was never the type of player to do so. His upper body strength is not good enough yet and he's still lacking match fitness.

He had a very heavy touch too yesterday which was unusual from what I"ve seen, but still he's one of those players when he does have the ball and has a bit of space, you'll know he'd make the best possible pass.

It was really nice in the first half seeing him and Scholes controlling the game, both players seemed to find their own space, however in the 2nd half we were trying to play counter attacking football and it didn't work for him as Kagawa couldn't turn his defenders.

Still a long way from Kagawa's best, he's got a future and was our best player in the first month or so, we just gotta keep him fit and keep playing him either behind the striker or maybe give him a free role coming from the left ( Though he'd lose a lot of stamina tracking back the LB, but I guess that's what he must work on ).
 
AttackingFlair said:
The system that people are criticising here wasn't bad when Rooney was playing it. Notable performances against Newcastle.
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Systems require the right personnel to play it though? Rafael and Scholes are a significant downgrade to Rooney and Carrick. Hence the issue with the system.
 
Platato said:
Spot on Ash. Haven't discussed tactics with you in a while but this formation just doesn't work for us at the moment. You literally have to have all the pieces working right to make it at least somewhat effective.

Juventus use a similar type of system with a 3-5-2 when attacking and a 4-3-3 when defending. It's quite fascinating to watch really. Vidal and Marchisio play further up to Pirlo while either Vucinic or Quagriella (however you spell his name) drop into the second striker role. It makes for a very fluid attack as they have the support of the bombing fullbacks to help out on the flanks. Asamoah performs this role admirably and it's a very taxing role.

We don't do anything remotely close to this but it seems to be the idea at times. It just didn't work and it definitely restricted the amount of space Kagawa had to work with. I think the other big thing is we don't give Kagawa the ball in the situations he would like. I've noticed several times that kagawa asks for the ball and receives it seconds later than when he wanted it. When you come against a very physical outfit like West Ham, those few seconds mean just about everything in your attacking momentum. That being said, the lad still had a disappointing performance for me. Good thing is, he just returned from injury and I'm confident he'll have better days.

We should use a 4-3-3 like you said. I see that as a better alternative to the diamond. Whatever we're trying to accomplish with it, it's just not working. If we want it to work, we'll have to play it much more often rather than occasionally.
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Yeah, I'm really not sure what the intention is with the diamond as we do it, even when we've done alright with it, it hasn't really let us get the best out of rooney there as he has to do so much tracking back. I'm not sure if the two wider players are meant to be holding back more and just not or if they're meant to be pushing up as high as they do. As theon said in the Gala game we saw powell being allowed to play much more further forward but that's the only occassion I can think off.

But yeah for me the 433 seems a much better compromise, 4231/4411 etc can all work as well, I think the important thing is to get Kagawa into areas where he can drift and get in and around the box, which he simply couldn't do enough in the diamond. At least with Rooney in the diamond when he has to track back he has the strength to hold of players, plus it's not his natural intention to get the ball with his back to goal and turn like it is with kagawa.

I agree about not getting the ball to kagawa as quickly as he'd like, i guess that will come with time though. The other thing for me though is I think we need to work on our off the ball running, particularly with a player like kagawa you want players making different runs in behind to open space etc and to allow the likes of kagawa to utilise their passing/vision.
 
I just though his first touch was insanely heavy yesterday, and that caused him problems as he didn't get time to recover. That said I still have very very high hopes for Kagawa but I fear we won't see the best of him this season unless he kicks on pretty soon.
 
I still can't figure out how we are going to play all of Rooney, Kagawa and v.Persie together successfully.

Do we push Kagawa out wide? Use him as a midfielder? Keep him behind v.Persie and push Rooney out wide?
 
LawCharltonBest said:
I still can't figure out how we are going to play all of Rooney, Kagawa and v.Persie together successfully.

Do we push Kagawa out wide? Use him as a midfielder? Keep him behind v.Persie and push Rooney out wide?
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Same way Chelsea can play mata and hazard or city silva and nasri, go for a 4231/433 however you want to call it with RVP as the main striker and then 3 of rooney, kagawa and a winger playing off him. Rooney could be the default central player but he can easily swap with kagawa etc. But in essence the 4 of them can all swap, well 3 of them depending on who the winger is.
 
Quite simple for me. If everyone is fit then I would play

Nani Rooney Kagawa
RVP

It would be a nightmare for most defenses with everyone of the top 4 constantly interchaning
 
Kagawa's definitely capable of better irrespective of the role he's played in, but I'm terrified we're going to dick around too much with someone who should be a fantastic player. We want him playing in areas where he's used to for now before we have him come deeper.

You can tell he's not quite feeling entirely comfortable at the moment given that his first touch was probably his best attribute whilst at Dortmund. We need him at the very least drifting centrally in more advanced areas, then when he's settled maybe experiment with him coming deeper to see if he's an option in that role.
 
akash02 said:
Quite simple for me. If everyone is fit then I would play

Nani Rooney Kagawa
RVP

It would be a nightmare for most defenses with everyone of the top 4 constantly interchaning
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We played that for a little while in the 2nd half against Spurs and it's probably the best i've seen us all season. We were in total control, passed them off the pitch and limited Spurs to something silly like 6 passes.

Of course we'd already shot ourselves in the foot in the first half where we were awful.
 
KingEric7 said:
Kagawa's definitely capable of better irrespective of the role he's played in, but I'm terrified we're going to dick around too much with someone who should be a fantastic player. We want him playing in areas where he's used to for now before we have him come deeper.

You can tell he's not quite feeling entirely comfortable at the moment given that his first touch was probably his best attribute whilst at Dortmund. We need him at the very least drifting centrally in more advanced areas, then when he's settled maybe experiment with him coming deeper to see if he's an option in that role.
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I totally agree with you that Kagawa is no centre midfielder. Shinji should have the option to roam and come deep if he chooses but his default position should be in the pocket, popping up between the lines and playing intricate passes to the runners and movers.

akash02 said:
Quite simple for me. If everyone is fit then I would play

Nani Rooney Kagawa
RVP

It would be a nightmare for most defenses with everyone of the top 4 constantly interchaning
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This is pretty much exactly what I'd like to see.
 
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