The problem is, people are seeing our line up on Sky Sports and just just assuming Kagawa is playing as a winger. He's been given complete freedom at times. He's drifting into these central roles, where he is supposedly a world beater, and still doing nothing. If he was coming inside and looking dangerous then he'd probably be played there from the start. As it happens, he isn't.
Shinji Kagawa
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The problem is, people are seeing our line up on Sky Sports and just just assuming Kagawa is playing as a winger. He's been given complete freedom at times. He's drifting into these central roles, where he is supposedly a world beater, and still doing nothing. If he was coming inside and looking dangerous then he'd probably be played there from the start. As it happens, he isn't.
Lol, such short memories. I hope Moyes has bigger patience for Kagawa than you lot here
Not sure if serious.
What are we forgetting, exactly?
The problem is people see him drifting inside and assume he has complete freedom. Playing as a winger in a 442 does not provide you complete freedom. You can't make any driving runs or risk playing through balls often. The moment you lose the ball like our first goal you are susceptible to a counter as in all likelihood the full back is already overlapping and one of the side is completely exposed.
He can drift in all he wants but he simply can't take the risks that a drifting in play maker usually does because of the obvious defensive responsibility attached to his role. Just look at Nani's thread and see the slack he is getting for not being effective enough defensively.
I'm not buying that for a second. His defensive responsibilities aren't causing him to hold he ball too long before passing it 2 yards to someone else. Why does Januzaj get away with driving runs and through balls? In fact, he's praised for doing just this.
Do you think Moyes tells Kagawa not to take on players or create chances?
He was coming to form last season and played on the left many times. He has hardly played this season and just basically needs a run of games. In these games he will have some under par ones, but when he kicks on he'll be great.
It's happening with Cleverley too. People wanted him to played last night, and one bad game he's not United quality anymore.
You seem to comparing players just for sake of it. Why Januzaj is effective ? His strengths let him play effectively as a wide player which is simple enough to understand. He can take players on and beat them and get behind them. That is not what Kagawa's game is about and has nothing to do with what Kagawa as a player is. Why did Wes Brown play better in right back even though he is a natural central player but Smalling can not ? Would you blame Smalling using that logic ?
Let me make it simple, when we felt that Ronaldo was too good to be restricted to wider positions and we wanted him to be more involved centrally we had to move away from 442 simply because it's too risky for a wide player in 442 to shun their defensive responsibilities completely or lose possessions in central areas.
I'm not going to argue that he won't come good or that he isn't a good player. I just think some are getting way ahead of themselves by making claims claims that we should basically rebuild our team or drop vital players just to fit him in. He's nowhere near that level yet.
I don't think you get what I'm trying to say. My point is that Januzaj starts from out wide, drifts inside, goes past players and plays through balls. He then gets praised highly by the manager for his peformances.
Yet you think that Kagawa doesn't do any of that because he isn't allowed.
Yes and what am saying is his performance out wide is not something that you should judge him for. You don't play Valencia as number 10 and deny him a shot at number 7 because his performance as number 10 has been poor. That does not make sense to me. Play him what he is best at and ship him out if he is not good enough, simple enough.
But Kagawa is being allowed the freedom to drift inside and, presumably, is tasked with making things happen. He's not doing that. Like I said, if he did look at least threatening when he came inside then I'm sure the manager would consider playing him there permanently. At the moment you want him to drop someone that is scoring goals in order to accommodate that. It's just not going to happen.
Commentator on my stream was complaining about Kagawa playing so far tucked in and basically behind the two strikers
Whats there to complain? Our tactics and formation were set up like that to allow him to drift inside and Evra to play as a pseudo left winger. Can't help it if Stoke shut up their shop and blocked everything thrown at them.
He was decent, but he offered very little penetration in his play.
91% Pass completion.
91% Pass completion.
Rooney played in 3 different positions today (Left Winger, AM and CM) and looked better than Kagawa throughout (not for the first time I might add).
RVP with the little service he had looked hell of a lot more dangerous than Kagawa did.
And despite all that people want us to drop one of them to fit Kagawa in when he has shown nothing at all to merit that kind of confidence in him. Absolute madness. He should perform where he is given chances (like most AM's in the word tend to do) because there's no way in hell we'll drop 2 our most productive players.
RVP with the little service he had looked hell of a lot more dangerous than Kagawa did.
And despite all that people want us to drop one of them to fit Kagawa in when he has shown nothing at all to merit that kind of confidence in him. Absolute madness. He should perform where he is given chances (like most AM's in the word tend to do) because there's no way in hell we'll drop 2 our most productive players.
Yes, it's madness that we think something else should occur instead of continuing with the Rooney RVP partnership that does not work.
RVP was fecking horrible today. Says a lot about you that you think he was good.
Do you have reading difficulties?
Where in that post do I say RVP was good? Go on...
I like Kagawa. Happy with his performance Wednesday and glad he played another game yesterday.
But it's lunacy to suggest RVP or Rooney should be moved out of the side to accommodate him in his natural position at this moment in time and there's plenty of this in this thread and on this forum. For me, they are the first two names on the team sheet and the times when they need a rest, Hernandez should be picking up the other games.
For now, Kagawa should be focusing on performing better than Januzaj, Nani, Young and Valencia and becoming a regular in the side.
But it's lunacy to suggest RVP or Rooney should be moved out of the side to accommodate him in his natural position at this moment in time and there's plenty of this in this thread and on this forum. For me, they are the first two names on the team sheet and the times when they need a rest, Hernandez should be picking up the other games.
For now, Kagawa should be focusing on performing better than Januzaj, Nani, Young and Valencia and becoming a regular in the side.
Bit surprised at his reluctance to take players on and beat them. Seems reluctant to make things happen on his own. Lack of confidence perhaps but he'l need to do that if he wants to make the left slot his.
You complain about comparisons with other players then bring up Valencia, who himself is often played at RB and is generally capable of putting in a shift there.
Do people really think Kagawa is there in training every day running the show from No.10 an then Moyes just sticks him left on a Saturday?
It's up to him to prove that he's good enough to demand a starting spot and the way to do that is grab every opportunity he gets. This idea that he's being restricted by being asked hug the touch line and track back is rubbish, he does neither to any great degree, more often than not he drifts into more central positions, from there he has shown very little. Certainly not enough to justify dropping one of our front two.
The suggestion that we totally alter our system to accommodate Kagawa is completely batshit crazy.
Jesus Christ. People really do see what they want to see.
Thanks brwned. I was starting to think I'd been watching a different game or something.
I don't think he popped up wide once, never mind spending the majority of the game there.
He was so central even the commentators on Setanta said we were basically playing Evra on his own on the left.
I'm not sure how anyone who saw the game could come up with the idea that he played wide.
There is truth in this. When he is surrounded by movement he excels - this we now. But we also know that he will not be surrounded by movement at all times at United - at least not in the foreseeable future. Which means that he will have to impose himself to a greater extent - take the game by the scruff of the neck, as the phrase goes. Look at young Adnan. He does precisely this.
Jesus Christ. People really do see what they want to see.
That's roughly where you'd expect to find him in a freeish role to the left, yes. Lopsided formation, no doubt - but that in itself is not a problem. He should be able to make something out of that role. But he needs to carve something out for himself. If he's not really involved he's just sort of getting in the way of Rooney - who likes to drift out into roughly the same area - and we're better off fielding someone else, such as Adnan, in a similar role.
Part of the problem was that Kagawa and Rooney took up the same space far too often - that was also partly down to Rooney wanting the ball too much. There were far too many people on that left side throughout the game, which cluttered our play and didn't suit either Kagawa or Rooney. The only player who managed to create something out of that mess was Evra - who is arguably our best dribbler these days (except for Januzaj perhaps).
He's not at the same level as he was last year, hopefully it's the toes and it gets sorted. He still managed to justify his inclusion and affect the game with a goal though.
Jesus Christ. People really do see what they want to see.
Oh look, here is a chart showing average position of a player in the pitch. It counts bugger all if for most part he was standing in middle of pitch and was not really picked out or had no chance to be involved in that part of the pitch. The graph above yours shows much better picture of involvement of a player in a game but go ahead and ignore it because it doesn't suit your perspective.
However on the second viewing of the game I do realise that he got involved in central parts more than usual though most of it was him dribbling inside sideways and then eventually passing it sideways because there were just too many players in that part of the field.
Mate not sure if you read what I actually said. I never compared Kagawa and Valencia as players, I just drew parallel about how judging Valencia's ability as player by playing him as a number 10 rather than number 7 which is his natural position. It has nothing to do with Valencia as a player and was an example, not sure how you got the idea that I was comparing them as players.
The suggestion that we judge a player by playing them in their best position might seem batshit crazy to you but it seems nothing more than a bit of common sense to me.
We are going round in circles here.
Yeah but 5 hours ago you were convinced he'd played the majority of the game wide left so excuse me if I take what's common sense to you with a giant pinch of salt.
No they play as wide forwards. Not on the fecking bi-line, but in the same guise as Barca circa 2011 with Pedro and Villa coming from slightly wider positions.
Oh pardon me for not having the perfect memory. Memory and common sense go hand in hand I see. Right !
For anyone interested, this shows where he received the ball. In the first half, he received the ball in central areas... In the second half, he was more involved down the left.
I don't think anyone disputes that Kagawa's best position is in the hole. The question is whether playing wide should hamper him to the extent that there's no point in playing him at all. I don't think it should. Not in the sort of free wide role we're talking about here. If he cannot impose himself on games - if he depends entirely on the movement of others - well, then he simply isn't versatile enough to be of much use to us at the moment. You could say it's our fault for lacking movement, you could say it Kagawa's fault for not being able to adapt his style - in truth it's probably a bit of both. But let's not jump to any conclusions. He could come good still.
Yeah and pardon me for expecting that you might have some vague clue about what you're talking about.
You're in a thread not only defending a players performance but giving detailed tactical reasons to support what you're saying, when you don't even know what fecking position he played.
It doesn't take the memory of an elephant to realise Kagawa didn't play wide left yesterday, and I'm guessing it doesn't take most people two watches. Same as I don't need to watch the game twice to know Carrick wasn't playing CB.
You're also citing the fact that he couldn't get involved in the game from the position he spent most of his time, not a million miles away from his favoured position, as some sort of defence. 5 hours ago it was because he was restricted to playing wide left.
In short, you're talking through your arse.
He just copied the Barcelona formation he just forgot RVP and Rooney aren't as dynamic as Messi and Neymar and we have no Iniesta... So never going to work.
My only point was that he was given plenty of freedom to drift centrally as has been the case every single time he's played there this season, and both of those images show exactly that. That's the same role that Silva or Mata or Cazorla or various others play. I agree that he's less suited to playing out wide than most of these #10s but he should still be doing much more than he is. Now we're saying that the central areas are too crowded when he drifts in from the left, previously we were told that for Kagawa to succeed he needed to be in the thick of things surrounded by players.
I think he's easily capable of playing in that position and being one of the best players on the pitch. It's not him at his best but he can still be very influential from it. Our style of play on the other hand may well prevent him from ever getting anywhere near top form, and if that's the case it was a mistake from the club in not recognising this. No arguments there. Clearly it's also a failing on Kagawa's part though; if he can only excel in one style of play then how can anyone claim he's a top player? I think (and hope) that's not the case and we can meet halfway. The team was never going to go through a fundamental change in our playing style to the extent that we started playing the football he's used to at Dortmund or Japan. It would just involve too much of an overhaul. I do think signing Kagawa was a sign that we wanted to incorporate some elements of it but I also think we were expecting Kagawa to adapt (and improve) his game too. So far Kagawa hasn't done enough to be that trigger for change.
I don't think our style of play is ideal for van Persie either but he's shown he can excel in two distinctly different setups at Arsenal and United. That's true for most of the players in our team, really. There's an extra level that they can reach if they were playing in their ideal setup because we don't buy players to fit one specific style of play unlike a team like Dortmund. Maybe that's something that will need to change now that Sir Alex has moved on. I just think it's a bit ridiculous that Kagawa is the only one that people use this excuse for. He's not playing at his best because we haven't found a system that gets the best out of both him and the team. He's not playing well, however, simply because of his own personal failings. He's been timid, passive and sloppy in far too many games. If he sorts out those issues then he'll find it much easier to establish himself in the team. Once that happens we can start talking about what it is we need to do to get more from Kagawa but until then he's shown nothing to deserve that level of trust and responsibility. And yes Mad Winger, I watched Kagawa at Dortmund plenty.
Ouch!
Just because I said I feel now that he was involved a bit more centrally than I first expected doesn't mean I was completely off with what I said earlier. But then I wouldn't expect you to get your head around such nuances as even simple analogies seem to fly over your head. You also seem to have it easier to understand with pictures than with words so why don't you click on the link that Money May shared and see for yourself. His involvement specially towards end of the game was wide left, now that wouldn't be possible without actually playing there would it ?
The fact that I'm talking through my arse should be a concern to you as it makes more sense than what you are blithering about with your mouth.
I think most of it has been perennially discussed already.
Let me just ask you something honestly, if Kagawa and RVP were to play up front and Rooney was played wide left with similar freedom in a typical united 442 then how would you judge Rooney's performance in relation to his potential ?
Yep, ultimately whether Kagawa was shite yesterday because he was playing on the wing and restricted to hugging the touchline and defending, your excuse last night, or because he was central and not able to get involved, your excuse this morning, the end result is the same.
And I don't need to see pictures to know where he played, I told you last night he hadn't played wide, you're the one who was convinced he played wide FOR THE MAJORITY of the game, until someone posted a picture for you.
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