Shinji Kagawa

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He's at the wrong club and needs to go. I don't think he'll ever be a success here. .
 
Tomuś said:
Pointless. He was jogging about on the half-way line making short time consuming passes when we were chasing the game at the death.
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lol so that's all you saw? you didn see him link up with welbeck which led to a corner? or was that also pointless?
 
Tomuś said:
Are you for real?
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yes. that puts your team in a position to score. he still should be doing more. i'm not sure he was pointless though. it may have felt that way doesnt mean that was the case. anywho i can tell this is going nowhere.
 
Can't expect a player to shine in a position he's not used to playing, in a system like ours where there is little to no movement from anyone in the team. He came from Dortmund, one of the best/fluid attacking sides in the world, to a team which plays nothing alike. Yeah, he could adapt, but he will never truly thrive in a position on the left wing or in the middle of midfield. A case of square pegs in round holes, and every time he plays out of position or in a team with no fluidity/movement or set game plan the more apparent it is.
 
jem said:
You're right - he doesn't fit a style of play that involves either everyone standing around and the ball being hoofed from the back, or the ball being constantly shifted out to Valencia, resulting in an inevitable misplaced cross.
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He's obviously a very good player but it's just not working. Btw we need to modernize the way we play, he shouldn't have to adapt to our game we need to be more of a passing team that plays modern football like most big clubs do. This is not gonna happen anytime soon as it requires a midfield so I reckon he'll be gone by summer unless something drastic happens in regards to our style of play.
 
Pretty much what AC said.

I think some people try to support or give him the benefit of the doubt because he fits in with that more modern identity that many believe we should be moving towards, however it doesn't look like we will be anytime soon.
 
UnofficialDevil said:
He wouldnt play ahead of Ozil as a 10.Even Rosicky looks better.
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More of a hypothetical thing, he would suit their system, the constant movement between their attacking players. That's what Kagawa thrives off. Not a team that lumps the ball wide and crosses it all game.
 
Ballache said:
He's obviously a very good player but it's just not working. Btw we need to modernize the way we play, he shouldn't have to adapt to our game we need to be more of a passing team that plays modern football like most big clubs do. This is not gonna happen anytime soon as it requires a midfield so I reckon he'll be gone by summer unless something drastic happens in regards to our style of play.
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which is a shame because he's a good player so i think he'd be worth keeping around but it looks like we bought him at the wrong time. our instinct as a team is still to pass it wide to valencia.

i think it was a good gamble by SAF and who knows where we'd be if we got hazard too but the reality is we dont. doesnt look like it's going to pan out for kagawa. i feel for him because he really wants to be a success with United and be the first japanese player to succeed in the EPL. but ya know, doesn always work out sometimes.
 
100 said:
Pretty much what AC said.

I think some people try to support or give him the benefit of the doubt because he fits in with that more modern identity that many believe we should be moving towards, however it doesn't look like we will be anytime soon.
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Thing is he needs more movement around him and our midfield is dogshite and he ends up out wide because of Rooney and Welbeck being better suited to this league and he's left with Evra's lazy non-tracking back arse and he naturally wants to drift in. It's not fitting together. If we had an all-action left-back in the mould of Rafael we might get away with Shinji out wide, drifting in however even then he's a player who relies on quick interchange and movement rather than pace and directness, unless our midfield can start to move forward he can't do that.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
Thing is he needs more movement around him and our midfield is dogshite and he ends up out wide because of Rooney and Welbeck being better suited to this league and he's left with Evra's lazy non-tracking back arse and he naturally wants to drift in. It's not fitting together. If we had an all-action left-back in the mould of Rafael we might get away with Shinji out wide, drifting in however even then he's a player who relies on quick interchange and movement rather than pace and directness, unless our midfield can start to move forward he can't do that.
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He needs to take more responsibility too though, he's obviously not playing with a lot of confidence at the moment.
 
datura said:
He needs to take more responsibility too though, he's obviously not playing with a lot of confidence at the moment.
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He's not a left midfielder though. It's just like when we signed this attacking midfielder with flair from Porto and tried to turn him into a box to box player. It never happened. 7 years later he's rotting away.
 
Orton said:
He's not a left midfielder though. It's just like when we signed this attacking midfielder with flair from Porto and tried to turn him into a box to box player. It never happened. 7 years later he's rotting away.
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He's got freedom to roam though. You hardly ever see him taking shots or trying to beat a player when he's capable of it. And Kagawa does play there for Japan so it's hardly an alien position and has performed well there for us at times.
 
datura said:
He needs to take more responsibility too though, he's obviously not playing with a lot of confidence at the moment.
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That's on him, Januzaj had his chance and took it, same with Welbeck, even Jones in centre-mid.
 
Ballache said:
He's obviously a very good player but it's just not working. Btw we need to modernize the way we play, he shouldn't have to adapt to our game we need to be more of a passing team that plays modern football like most big clubs do. This is not gonna happen anytime soon as it requires a midfield so I reckon he'll be gone by summer unless something drastic happens in regards to our style of play.
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Sadly, I agree with all of that.
 
Orton said:
He's not a left midfielder though. It's just like when we signed this attacking midfielder with flair from Porto and tried to turn him into a box to box player. It never happened. 7 years later he's rotting away.
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That's on Anderson though, it's not like he didn't show signs that he couldn't be a box-to-box midfielder, injuries didn't help but Anderson could have worked harder and there's no excuse for him not being able to play 90 mins so often.
 
datura said:
He's got freedom to roam though. You hardly ever see him taking shots or trying to beat a player when he's capable of it. And Kagawa does play there for Japan so it's hardly an alien position and has performed well there for us at times.
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Yes, he has put in some decent performances out there but the fact is he is not best suited out wide in a 4411 or 442 system tracking back covering for the full back. Japan play a 4231 and he drifts inside a lot for them. He can't do that as much on the left for us because every time Evra is left exposed. His confidence must be really low, and I agree he should try and shoot more, and play a more positive game but that could also be down to his lack of self belief and confidence right now.
 
ArmchairCritic said:
That's on him, Januzaj had his chance and took it, same with Welbeck, even Jones in centre-mid.
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Yep, he's obviously not totally suited to our style of play at present, but the best players will impose themselves more on a game. You think a goal would do him a lot of good, even if it's a shinner. Welbeck has proved the difference confidence can make to a player.
 
datura said:
Yep, he's obviously not totally suited to our style of play at present, but the best players will impose themselves more on a game. You think a goal would do him a lot of good, even if it's a shinner. Welbeck has proved the difference confidence can make to a player.
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I did feel he should have played centrally vs. Norwich from the start ahead of Giggs, would have preferred Giggs out wide.
 
datura said:
Yep, he's obviously not totally suited to our style of play at present, but the best players will impose themselves more on a game. You think a goal would do him a lot of good, even if it's a shinner. Welbeck has proved the difference confidence can make to a player.
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At this point, I think even an assist would do him good. He needs to impose himself more but part of the issue is that he's not really an individualist and as adnan has shown so far, that's what we need right now. Kagawa from what i've seen is less likely to offer this when the setup doesn suit his abilities. Not saying he cant dribble past players but he certainly wont do it consistently. Just doesnt seem to be his game.

So if he cant impose himself more on the game through dribbling, out of curiosity what more would you like to see him do on the pitch?
 
datura said:
He's got freedom to roam though. You hardly ever see him taking shots or trying to beat a player when he's capable of it. And Kagawa does play there for Japan so it's hardly an alien position and has performed well there for us at times.
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You can spend all day talking about positions and formations, but that isn't the problem here. It's all about the style and fluidity. Put him on the left in a 4-4-2 at Dortmund or Japan and on the left at United and you'll see performances that are worlds apart. The former 2 both play a fluid style that is based on playing through the opposition with quick movement and clever passing, whereas United is give the balls to the wingers, cross the ball in. Over, and over, and over again. Kagawa doesn't fit that style, never has, and he never will. It's nothing to do with the league or him not being good enough like pocco seems obsessed with saying, but it's that we play a style with little movement in our team, and our way of attacking is essentially just putting the ball in the box and hope it finds a man. Put Shinji in Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Southampton, City, any team with a lot of movement and don't hoof it in the box every chance they get and he'd be performing far better then he is now.
 
Orton said:
Yes, he has put in some decent performances out there but the fact is he is not best suited out wide in a 4411 or 442 system tracking back covering for the full back. Japan play a 4231 and he drifts inside a lot for them. He can't do that as much on the left for us because every time Evra is left exposed. His confidence must be really low, and I agree he should try and shoot more, and play a more positive game but that could also be down to his lack of self belief and confidence right now.
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Lol please tell me what's the difference between a 442 or a 4231? He could play exactly the same way for us but he just isn't. Even when he plays in the middle like he did when young came on he was basically invisible. I love him as a player but he needs to do a lot more to impose himself. Make us want to pass too him.
 
bosnian_red said:
You can spend all day talking about positions and formations, but that isn't the problem here. It's all about the style and fluidity. Put him on the left in a 4-4-2 at Dortmund or Japan and on the left at United and you'll see performances that are worlds apart. The former 2 both play a fluid style that is based on playing through the opposition with quick movement and clever passing, whereas United is give the balls to the wingers, cross the ball in. Over, and over, and over again. Kagawa doesn't fit that style, never has, and he never will. It's nothing to do with the league or him not being good enough like pocco seems obsessed with saying, but it's that we play a style with little movement in our team, and our way of attacking is essentially just putting the ball in the box and hope it finds a man. Put Shinji in Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Southampton, City, any team with a lot of movement and don't hoof it in the box every chance they get and he'd be performing far better then he is now.
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The thing is earlier on in this thread we had posts about him being played out of position and that if we played him as a 10 behind Rooney he would bring so much to our team etc etc, or play Rooney on left let him play centrally he will offer so much, now that he has played there offering virtually nothing, its the teams fault he needs players moving around him he would be perfect for Arsenal City etc. I dont think he would be a starter at Arsenal or City, I also think that Arsenal's or City's equivalents of Kagawa Ozil and Nasri on the other hand would be starters in our team and would make a difference even if we are playing old fashioned shit football.
 
Adam-Utd said:
Lol please tell me what's the difference between a 442 or a 4231? He could play exactly the same way for us but he just isn't. Even when he plays in the middle like he did when young came on he was basically invisible. I love him as a player but he needs to do a lot more to impose himself. Make us want to pass too him.
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in short adam, in a 4-4-2 usually one of the strikers have to drop deeper to link up with midfielders. 4-2-3-1, third midfielder already there to take of that. that's the idea at least
 
UnofficialDevil said:
The thing is earlier on in this thread we had post about him being played out of position and that if we played him as a 10 behind Rooney he would bring so much to our team etc etc, or play Rooney on left let him play centrally he will offer so much, now that he has played there offering virtually nothing, its the teams fault he needs players moving around him he would be perfect for Arsenal City etc. I dont think he would be a starter at Arsenal or City, I also think that Arsenal's or City's equivalents of Kagawa Ozil and Nasri on the other hand would be starters in our team and would make a difference even if we are playing old fashioned shit football.
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ye which probably highlights shinji's limitations in terms of being an impactful player despite the system. He has had some good perfomances in the 10 position but you couldn really say any were worth of ousting rooney in that role.

But as we can see with Chelsea, Mata is a wonderful player but Oscar and Willian suit Mourinho's idea of what he wants Chelsea to be better than Mata does.

Nasri would probably be better for us because he likes to take players on. Ozil, I go back and forth. I think the way he disappears in big games would make our fans absolutely irate.
 
UnofficialDevil said:
The thing is earlier on in this thread we had posts about him being played out of position and that if we played him as a 10 behind Rooney he would bring so much to our team etc etc, or play Rooney on left let him play centrally he will offer so much, now that he has played there offering virtually nothing, its the teams fault he needs players moving around him he would be perfect for Arsenal City etc. I dont think he would be a starter at Arsenal or City, I also think that Arsenal's or City's equivalents of Kagawa Ozil and Nasri on the other hand would be starters in our team and would make a difference even if we are playing old fashioned shit football.
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I at least was always saying its more him being suited to a completely different style of football than us. Ozil I don't think would impress at united at all either. He'd still get assists but he'd be largely ineffective IMO. Nasri for me is also more versatile to both Kagawa and Ozil, or David silva, and would be more suited to us I think. Of course Ozil and silva are a different class to Kagawa, but Kagawa isn't at his prime yet and was still relatively inexperienced and young when we brought him in.
 
Gladiator said:
ye which probably highlights shinji's limitations in terms of being an impactful player despite the system. He has had some good perfomances in the 10 position but you couldn really say any were worth of ousting rooney in that role.

But as we can see with Chelsea, Mata is a wonderful player but Oscar and Willian suit Mourinho's idea of what he wants to Chelsea to be better than Mata does.

Nasri would probably be better for us because he likes to take players on. Ozil, I go back and forth. I think the way he disappears in big games would make our fans absolutely irate.
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This, even Rosicky does, Kagawa doesnt take on players, he gets pushed off the ball, doesnt shoot, doesnt run with the ball,he might have nice clever short passes but doesn't have that unpredictable pass or lob just that something extra that players like Nasri for example do.
 
Orton said:
Is it really that simple? He would be brilliant for Arsenal.
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I dont think he would. He looks so off the pace at the moment and he's not great without the ball either. He's supposed to be this superior technical player, but I lost count of the amount of times he'd fail to show.for the ball today or ask for it in positions where it was impossible to give him.

He's not even creative. When we signed him I was worried that he couldn't hack it over here based on what I saw at Dortmund. Even back then he used to get dispossessed quite often if a defender got close to him.
 
Gladiator said:


in short adam, in a 4-4-2 usually one of the strikers have to drop deeper to link up with midfielders. 4-2-3-1, third midfielder already there to take of that. that's the idea at least
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Exactly, your dropping a striker for a midfielder essentially. What that has to do with the wide players I have no idea?.

The formation we play and the area he plays is not the problem. The tempo/movement/philosophy of the team you could argue is - but he does not have enough about him individually to adapt.
 
Adam-Utd said:
Exactly, your dropping a striker for a midfielder essentially. What that has to do with the wide players I have no idea?.

The formation we play and the area he plays is not the problem. The tempo/movement/philosophy of the team you could argue is - but he does not have enough about him individually to adapt.
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little to argue with there. on a side note, the wide players could still be considered part of the 3 but not viewed as pure wingers in the traditional sense
 
Perhaps we're so used to having Rooney's drive in the 10 role that a player who clearly doesnt have that like Kagawa or a similar player isn't going to fit very well. Its a shame because its not like Rooney doesn't have his own limitations or bad habits, like always looking to pass the ball to the right for some reason, even if the man on the left is in good space. He'll check back onto his right foot and shift play to the right. And on the couple of occasions Kagawa has looked good in the 10 role for us he's moved the ball at a quicker tempo than we usually do with Rooney and that was nice. But ultimately most of the time that Kagawa has played that role for us he's been too quiet and not influencial enough, which is probably Rooney's strong point there and we're missing it.
 
100 said:
Pretty much what AC said.

I think some people try to support or give him the benefit of the doubt because he fits in with that more modern identity that many believe we should be moving towards, however it doesn't look like we will be anytime soon.
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The thing is, that when the transfer of Kagawa was announced I thought that this was SAF´s first step to change the heavily winger based system towards a more fluid pass system. Otherwise the transfer would have made very little sense to me.

The problem was, that the next steps never came and he suffered from that. It did not help that some people on here had false expectations of him. They thought that bringing him in would solve the movement problems and modernise the system. Suddenly he was claimed to be the Bundesliga player of the season, the creative center of Dortmund and the guy their system was built around. All these claims were not accurate.

People criticise him for not imposing himself enough on the game, for not taking charge and creating enough. He never was much of a lead player and creator at Dortmund, which was not really a problem, because a team does not need ten of these. He was an extremely skilled role player. The before mentioned tasks were taken over by other players, namely Sahin, Hummels, Götze and Gündogan.

This is also why he sometimes dissapeared on the pitch when the overall play was dire. He could turn a decent playing side into a great playing one, but when there was no spark he struggled. His job was not to create the spark, but to make the fire stronger. I remember someone calling him a multiplier in the past, which fit his role very well.

Unfortunately his role of a pressing orientated very offensive minded central midfielder does in that form not exist at United. His greatest strength besides his pressing ability was finding spaces in the center where it was the thickest. This gave Dortmund the option to play through the center and use him as a constant pass option. This of course helped the other offensive players and creating players aswell.

I also doubt, if he would be mentally strong enough to carry a team. He struggles for months now with his confidence and it affects his play greatly. His normally existing goal threat is completely gone. Maybe he needs the constant support he had from his former coach to really deliver, which would make it hard for him at a club of the size of United, because there you have to draw confidence from somewhere even if you don´t get it from the staff.


As it stands now, I don´t see much future for him at United. For his sake, I can only hope that he finds a club, where he can resume his former role and show his strengths again.
 
UnofficialDevil said:
This, even Rosicky does, Kagawa doesnt take on players, he gets pushed off the ball, doesnt shoot, doesnt run with the ball,he might have nice clever short passes but doesn't have that unpredictable pass or lob just that something extra that players like Nasri for example do.
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i think he does have the capability to play the unpredictable pass. He's very good at playing through balls. I think part of the issue is as you hinted at, that something extra. He still hasnt really got a run of games with the team and at dortmund he was afforded that with klopp which i think really helped his confidence. This is United and he doesnt have the same faith in him as Fergie and Moyes have shown in Valencia despite his poor performances so he really needs to have one of those games where he makes a telling impact.

Unfortunatley so far he hasn done it to the level we would like. I know i've argued with you in the past over kagawa and it seemed like i was making excuses but i was merely try to counteract some of the criticism and offer some of my own observations which i feel are relevant when it comes to the "why hasn kagawa lived up to expectations" discussion. I try to be balanced on all of our players but obviously emotions can get the best of you sometimes ha
 
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