This thread just keeps going in circles thanks to Mad Winger.
Shinji Kagawa
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You should read the other posts before you jump in head-first like that... I clearly stated above that I want us to lose if that means that we will start playing better as a result. Moyes etc are clearly in need of a reality check. I don't want us to lose to prove my point to you. That's childish. Besides, I don't give a feck about you lot. I don't know you, and I'll never meet you anyways.
I'm advocatig better football. It's as simple as that. Kagawa is merely the tool for this. It could have been anyone else, as long as the situation was similar.
Yeah people assume that because Sahin didn't work out at Madrid and because Kagawa doesn't seem to be working out at United that it's because Dortmund make them look better then they are. They don't realize that Sahin had horrible luck with injuries at Madrid and Mourinho never gave him chances, while Kagawa at United will never be the main #10 as long as Rooney is here. Had Sir Alex not retired I think Rooney would have been gone and Kagawa starting behind RVP, but as it is, it won't happen. Also pretty much any player United would be interested in from Dortmund would walk into our side (Reus, Gundogan, Bender). Even one of the center backs probably.
Do you honestly think Kagawa deserves to be starting as a #10, arguably the most important position in the attack, over Rooney who has been one of the best players in the world there for the past 10 years for United? Or he's good enough to shift Rooney up front and put RVP on the bench?
That, and the fact that certain "top reds" can't stand the thought of our club doing something remotely wrong. It's clearly just Kagawa who's shit. He was only "lucky" to be world class in Dortmund, a club that's incidentally much better than us.
I believe that football isn't as straight-forward as Football Manager/FIFA. I don't think that players should live on their name, even when the team as a whole seems to struggle a bit. Right now I'd bench RVP and push Rooney up to the striker position. An unpopular opinion, but I think everyone except RVP would benefit from that right now..
Yeah I don't agree with most of the others on here that think his fans are overrating him and he just isn't good enough. He clearly is, he's just not that suited to play on the left for us, and isn't good enough to displace Rooney or Van Persie (who is though?)
Kagawa playing as number 10 instead of Rooney will change feck all in terms of Utd playing better football MW. Utd as a whole needs to improve in terms of movement, Kagawa is no Jesus to perform miracles that's for sure. His place is on the bench, sadly for him.
You want at least one attacking player making runs without the ball to capitalise on the creativity of your other players and with Reus becoming more and more a brilliant playmaker as well, at least in transition, I'd say you want him on the ball a lot and therefore a player like Kuba or Aube seems the better choice on the right. Reus' development might really be a problem for Kagawa right now, he's simply an even better version of him with more versatility, who doesn't give a shit in which position he starts and never looses his influence on the game. Right now, it'd be stupid to run the attack mainly through Kagawa with everyone around him making runs like it was the case in his 'worldclass' half a season.
You take fanboyish to a whole new fecking level.
Why in the name of feck would we drop RVP for Kagawa? If RVP is dropped then Hernandez is still ahead of Kagawa. You need to deal with the fact that Kagawa is not as good as you think and certainly not world class
Who knows, but RVP and Rooney seem to be building up a decent partnership now and I think given they are both some of the best players in the world, and our most important players, that they deserve to stick together and let them work it out together as I don't think anyone can argue that Kagawa is a better individual then either of them. It isn't a case of Drogba and Torres not working together either, as those two clearly got in each others way and are both meant to be main strikers, RVP is a #9 and Rooney is a #10 pretty much so they should work together.
Saying that, kagawa I think has huge potential and can be a world class player or close to it, but he won't get there at United.
It's about as painful watching Young trying to cross.
RVP is our top goalscorer, of course it would be an unpopular opinion. What's Kagawa done so far to deserve a place ahead of RVP?
I didnt think he was shit, didnt have a great game but do agree that he is too good technically to fade away. He just needs time. Moyes has only known him a short while and despite the fact everyone thinks things should be able to happen right away sometimes they dont. New manager, new coaching systems, Kagawa is good enough to come right, we just need to be patient and give him time.
We wont know until we try, though, will we?
Besides, Rooney is not really playing as a proper AM anyways. He's a deeplying striker who's in form. His form wouldn't drop if he was pushed further up the pitch. In fact, I think he'd score even more goals! Putting Kagawa in Rooney's position will basically be like playing with 3 midfielders. We'd control possession better, and have much more creativity up front.
It might be a bit rough in the beginning, but I think it's worth it in the long run. Our midfield is generally too weak to play offensively well with 2 strikers. Kagawa would help our midfield. We'd probably have less effectivity in front of goal, but we'd create more chances and keep the ball better. I personally think that we'd benefit from this in the long run, but there's no clear answer to this. The only thing that's almost certain, is that our football would be more entertaining and generally better. If we could convert that into United effectivity, then it would be awesome.
MW, you'd be better served campaigning for Januzaj to play in the AM role as that is far more likely to happen now.
That's the thing though, there is no certainty or almost certainty, it's all speculation after all. Facts are what they are, Kagawa hasn't played well enough to force a change in style and tactics from either SAF and Moyes so far. He's at Utd, he's no Ronaldo, Zlatan nor Messi, the team will not adapt to him at first. He's done feck all done to deserve anymore that he's been given.
5 goals and 5 assists between RVP and Rooney in the last 3 league games isn't really form form being dropped, whether it makes us more exciting or not. He should be getting more chances in his best position but now is not the time when we're clawing back league points, and he's talented enough to be showing more than he is anyway.
.... on the left wing. Whenever he's played in the no.10 role(i.e. with actual wingers making runs on both sides of him) since he came back from his injury, he's looked class.
I don't like the logic that says that a player needs to perform well out of position first in order to get playtime where they're best... It doesn't make sense to me, because it doesn't allow anyone to be specialists. Kagawa is by no means a bad winger. He disproved that well enough under SAF. It's just that he's so much better as an AM. Why settle for a 7/10 winger, when you can get a 9/10 AM? Hell, right now he's maybe more like a 6/10 winger, which only further strengthens the argument of playing him behind the striker.
The only thing it strengthens is Januzaj's position in the side as he's doing a better job right now, whether he's playing from the right, left or centrally.
Because at the moment there is another player who is better than your protégé and plays more or less in that position. If Kagawa is a 9/10 AM then Rooney is a 12/10, really your overrating of him is weird. You are in denial man, Kagawa is not better than Rooney as a number 10 for Utd, RVP will not be benched and rightly so because he's very productive. Kagawa can do the best he can with what's left of the play and positioning or he can ask to leave. You'd have a case if Rooney was truly woeful or injured but he's healthy and a much better player than Shinji.
... and thus back to the drawing board
Say what you want: Rooney is a striker. Playing with Rooney, is like playing with 2 strikers. When we play Rooney and RVP, we sacrifice our midfield to accommodate them. Our CM has too little passing safety and is therefore forced to focus on defending, which again stifles our creativity. Our wingers are also forced to pull a bigger load then usual, seeing as they receive the ball way too often to catch the opponents defence off-guard.
Rooney and RVP score goals and assist, so they are doing their job. But it's at the expense of the rest of our team. We wont ever become the best with this formation, unless we buy Bayerns entire midfield. I for one, think it's easier to just bench one of them and toss in a creative attacking midfielder instead.
Even last season when Rooney was playing more as an AM and even CM, he was still much better than Shinji.
What was this place like with Veron I wonder, because Kagawa definitely looks to me like a similar story; undoubtedly talented but wrong club, wrong time.
I'll just refer to my laste reply to Maestro14.
Kagawa was easily a 9/10 AM for Dortmund. If he's given time in the proper position, I'm confident he can return to the same form for us.
Rooney is not a very good AM. He's a world class striker, though.
I'd utterly love Kagawa to be a success here, but things just aren't right for him now, between bad form, not being top of the depth chart in his preferred position, and his wingplay style being square peg/round hole to how United play.
Damn shame though, his style is really fun to watch when it's working, and quite lethal with it.
Damn shame though, his style is really fun to watch when it's working, and quite lethal with it.
I fully agree but you don´t need to tell me that. Tell that Gündogan who seemingly wants to move on to higher goals. All this swap talk was under the premise that Gündogan does not renew his contract. If he does this all obviously becomes null and void.
Mkhitaryan shows his versatility more with his ability to drop deeper (CM) or play even more advanced (CF). He could theoretically play on the right flank, but the question would be if he would make a better job there than an in form Blaszczykowski or a fully integrated Aubameyang and on that point I´m highly sceptical.
This example also shows one flaw in your argumentation. You try so hard to push Kagawa in the CAM role that it seems that the rest of the offensive formation does not matter. It would likely improve his personal performance but would not necessarily improve the offensive play as a whole, because you would either outright replace Rooney or put him on the flank.
Like him or not. Wayne Rooney is right now your overall best performing player and it makes way more sense to keep him as CAM than to put a player there with the hopes of him getting better. Kagawa needs to make a case for himself. He needs to show that he would be the better choice than Rooney. Otherwise he won´t play there regularily.
I keep repeating myself every game when I say he needs a rocket up his arse. He's too lackadaisical and testimonial paced.
Get Dortmund out of your system man, we don't play like them and we don't intend to by the looks of things. Kagawa as a 10 for Utd might not be performing as Kagawa for Dortmund. If he was so good then SAF should never have bought RVP and should played him there with Rooney up top. Your constant overrating of him is unique on the Caf.
How? On the left wing? We might as well put Kagawa in CM then..
Kagawa has been given a full 10 minutes(!) in the AM role in 16 competitive games. He looked awesome then, so I don't see what he's done to prove that he can't play well again. Also, I just don't see Rooney's level dropping at all as a lone striker. I actually think he'd play better like that.
RVP was too good to pass up on. He was not initially a part of the plan, you know...
Still, that doesn't mean that we don't need him. On the contrary! It's always nice to have a world class backup.
It's like he doesn't wanna even give Moyes a starting eleven headache. We're not asking him to turn into the Japanese Kuyt and chase down every lost ball but a little more urgency and creativity in his play. If he's as good as he's claimed to be, all the times he drifts inside and is in central areas, he has got to do better than what he is offering. Individually he's been poor, without even going into details about the general team tactics.
That puts Shinji in his right place then, behind RVP and Rooney in the pecking order. If he was so good why wasn't put as a 10 from the start and Rooney on the wing/bench/up front ? He's a good player but there are others better than him, it's really simple. Even a rookie like Adnan is displaying technical and mental attributes than Shinji.
Actually.....
I was thinking about this, and if he had a stronger workrate, he might not be a bad CM, taking the ball forward, alongside a more defensive CM, or as the point of an attacking CM trio in a 4-3-3.
If Fergie was still here then Rooney would have been sold and that was Fergie's plan. Probably why he bought Kagawa to replace Rooney in that number 10 role. Moyes has kept Rooney and now has a problem. If RvP or Rooney got injured then Kagawa might get his chance but Moyes will play those two otherwise.
I don't disagree with that but when they were all fit, under SAF, who was playing that famous CAM position ? Definitely not Kagawa. The only way for Kagawa to play ahead of Rooney there is that if he's injured or has left the club.
it's a decent point. I just remain convinced that our play style at the moment is lacking in movement, dynamism and creativity and Kagawa is exactly the type of player to address those issues. If we can't integrate a player like him into the team, it speaks more to our deficiencies than his imo.
I certainly agree he's not in quite the same class as those you mentioned above though.
The most annoying part is he's clearly a quick player who can run at defences, I've seen him do it at Dortmund. But he just never does it for us. Everything is half paced and completely ineffective. It's his choosing to move at that pace, and it's bizarre because he's much quicker than that. He doesn't seem to want responsibility of the ball, and you can't have that as a United player. He's too happy to be popping pretty, neat, but ultimately ineffective passes off and operating in completely the wrong areas of the pitch. He's not busting a gut in matches and is certainly not giving Moyes any reason to play him. HE needs to adapt to US, not us to him. He's not good enough to warrant that sort of thinking. He simply has to do things quicker.
At the end of the day, we as supporters seem to agree on one thing: as a team, we're not good enough. The question is, how do we fix this?
Do we sign 2-3 world class midfielders, or do we change our style a little and bench a superstar(RVP or Rooney, depending on form)? I've never really been a transfer muppet, so I'd prefer the latter.
Do we sign 2-3 world class midfielders, or do we change our style a little and bench a superstar(RVP or Rooney, depending on form)? I've never really been a transfer muppet, so I'd prefer the latter.
So we should move an in-form #10 Rooney to striker, dropping RVP in the process, so we can try out Kagawa, despite him not impressing in the slightest in other positions?
Something Fergie stressed was versatility with positions. With our academy players, they're trained to play in multiple positions (although obviously still having a main position) but to be capable to fill in in different roles and different positions. If Kagawa can only play as a #10, and we've got Wayne Rooney as our #10 then it's not looking likely Kagawa will make it at the club, is it?
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