Shinji Kagawa

Status
Not open for further replies.
Lot of good posts.

mlclauhk said:
I don't care about people saying that Kagawa hasn't performed this year...
Click to expand...

I think it's come to the point where the caf would be justified in aggressively going after the idiots who keep saying that. People are too nice sometimes. Most of the time we just ignore it, but sometimes you have to just put your foot down. Just absolutely rail on the 'well he should prove himself on the left first' crowd and all the variants of it. Think about how we'd look at it if another top team were notorious for playing one of their best players out of position, if even played at all. It'd be laughed at and rightly so.
 
last night was another night that proves yet again that kagawa is more than good enough for our team. Moyes simply does not trust the notion of allowing him to be one of the main players in a set up yet any time his hand has been turned kagawa has proved infintely better than cleverley, young and valencia.

He 100% must start at home against olympiakos. With januzaj and rooney and van persie. Allowing all 4 some freedom.

we might as well lose 1-0 going for a 4-0 win.
 
SER19 said:
last night was another night that proves yet again that kagawa is more than good enough for our team. Moyes simply does not trust the notion of allowing him to be one of the main players in a set up yet any time his hand has been turned kagawa has proved infintely better than cleverley, young and valencia.

He 100% must start at home against olympiakos. With januzaj and rooney and van persie. Allowing all 4 some freedom.

we might as well lose 1-0 going for a 4-0 win.
Click to expand...

If we play all 4 from the start with Carrick and Fellaini behind them, we'l go through imo.
 
hungrywing said:
Lot of good posts.


I think it's come to the point where the caf would be justified in aggressively going after the idiots who keep saying that. People are too nice sometimes. Most of the time we just ignore it, but sometimes you have to just put your foot down. Just absolutely rail on the 'well he should prove himself on the left first' crowd and all the variants of it. Think about how we'd look at it if another top team were notorious for playing one of their best players out of position, if even played at all. It'd be laughed at and rightly so.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of the Mata situation at Chelsea. We all know how that ended up.
 
Varun_Utd said:
If we play all 4 from the start with Carrick and Fellaini behind them, we'l go through imo.
Click to expand...
Yes, but an they hoof the ball in the right way? Or even more important can they be good at getting into the other side of the hoof?

Kagawa for a start is too small, Adnan is too light. EVen Van Persie isn't that good at it.

Lineup is only a part of the problem. Likely we will play a bit better with a less retarded lineup but it wouldn't be a significant difference. Until we completely change tactics and training and these players find the confidence (ie. sack Moyes and hire a much better manager which frankly speaking should be one of the easiest thing to do) it won't change that much. Playing or not Kagawa will make little difference.
 
He was the only good thing about last night.

Deserves to start the next game.... Won't start the next game.
 


Looking at this, he did worse than I recall. Two good actions and one bog standard pass out wide. Aside from those, the only successful actions he had were backpasses. The rest were either misplaced passes, shrugged off the ball or failing to exert pressure in a meaningful way.

I think a manager like Moyes will be looking at mistakes made and thinking his positives don't outweigh that.
 
Varun_Utd said:
If we play all 4 from the start with Carrick and Fellaini behind them, we'l go through imo.
Click to expand...

We could play all 4 of them with the two behind them and win 5-0 yet we'd still play Valencia and Young in the next round. That's the thing about it.
 
Revan said:
Yes, but an they hoof the ball in the right way? Or even more important can they be good at getting into the other side of the hoof?

Kagawa for a start is too small, Adnan is too light. EVen Van Persie isn't that good at it.

Lineup is only a part of the problem. Likely we will play a bit better with a less retarded lineup but it wouldn't be a significant difference. Until we completely change tactics and training and these players find the confidence (ie. sack Moyes and hire a much better manager which frankly speaking should be one of the easiest thing to do) it won't change that much. Playing or not Kagawa will make little difference.
Click to expand...

A managerial change is needed but it wont happen anytime soon. As far as the 2nd leg is concerned, our best hope is with the 6 I mentioned. Long term, yes, that in itself wont solve our problems.
 
Sarni said:
We could play all 4 of them with the two behind them and win 5-0 yet we'd still play Valencia and Young in the next round. That's the thing about it.
Click to expand...

Maybe he will. but lets look at that when we get there.
 
kouroux said:
The Kagawa I watched last night really impressed me by his willingness to ask and take the ball under pressure, by his ability to make it simple and effective. I can understand not starting in the league but in the CL when we have no Mata available, there is no justification whatsoever to not play him nor introduce so late in the game. He should have been on at the start of the second half.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I am not his biggest fan but it was painfully obvious that he'd do a better job than either of the wide men that were selected. I think it is similar to what Fergie did with Nani last season: fair enough he hasn't played well enough to be the first name on the team sheet, however look at the alternatives... They've been nothing short of horrendous. Surely just by the process of elimination he should be playing if any one of Mata/Januzaj/Rooney/RVP aren't available?
 
B20 said:


Looking at this, he did worse than I recall. Two good actions and one bog standard pass out wide. Aside from those, the only successful actions he had were backpasses. The rest were either misplaced passes, shrugged off the ball or failing to exert pressure in a meaningful way.

I think a manager like Moyes will be looking at mistakes made and thinking his positives don't outweigh that.
Click to expand...

In that clip Kagawa tried 3 through balls- to Evra, Smalling and Young. 2 of them came off (Smalling and Young). I don't remember any of the other players attempting a through ball to get his teammates running into space. That pass and move link up with Rooney and Evra was also the best move by any of our midfielders who were mostly static or pedestrian at best.
 
finneh said:
Agreed. I am not his biggest fan but it was painfully obvious that he'd do a better job than either of the wide men that were selected. I think it is similar to what Fergie did with Nani last season: fair enough he hasn't played well enough to be the first name on the team sheet, however look at the alternatives... They've been nothing short of horrendous. Surely just by the process of elimination he should be playing if any one of Mata/Januzaj/Rooney/RVP aren't available?
Click to expand...

Even if he's asked to play an "unnatural" game like hugging the touchline and crossing the ball, Kagawa is still a much better option than Young and Valencia. At one pt in the first half Valencia has some space but delivers one of the most retard crosses of this season, he didn't even look at the penalty box, just smashed the ball.
 
finneh said:
Agreed. I am not his biggest fan but it was painfully obvious that he'd do a better job than either of the wide men that were selected. I think it is similar to what Fergie did with Nani last season: fair enough he hasn't played well enough to be the first name on the team sheet, however look at the alternatives... They've been nothing short of horrendous. Surely just by the process of elimination he should be playing if any one of Mata/Januzaj/Rooney/RVP aren't available?
Click to expand...

That's been my opinion all along. He's not been great but he's not been worse than both Valencia and Young.

Fergie did start Nani against Real though and also twice against Chelsea in the cup. He handled Nani better than Moyes has done with Kagawa.
 
Again as we saw last night when Young plays he plays inside exactly as Kagawa wants to. He doesn't get tight to the edge of the pitch like Valencia on the other side, he's the opposite coming in field. The only thing he has over Kagawa (except recent goals, which is a worthy talking point now. When Young wasnt scoring either, it wasnt) is that any time Evra gets forward Young will play him in. Like 90% of the time he'll short pass to Evra, creating a little bit of space for him to get a cross in. Again, how hard is it to ask Kagawa to focus on interplay with Evra?
 
sullydnl said:
If we do get rid of Moyes I hope this guy hasn't been sold by then. I'm no Kagawa fanboy but you'd need to be blind to not recognise his talent and the fact that we're wasting him.

Kagawa isn't blameless for his lack of success here but it's hard to imagine him struggling so much under a top manager. If we do end up bringing in an elite replacement for Moyes I'm fairly sure they'd prefer to have Kagawa around.
Click to expand...

What's been understated about Kagawa is that at this stage of his development, he needs a manager that has faith in him. What I mean by that is mentally, he's harder on himself than he is set on proving you wrong if that makes sense. You can see it in his way when he hesitates and gets knocked off the ball.

Under Klopp, even in his periods of poor form, the german stuck with him and Kagawa eventually repaid that faith. He hasn't got that same faith from Moyes because I'm assuming in Moyes' eyes, he hasn't done enough to start in the 10 role. But then you take that with all the other issues within the squad and club and it doesnt make it any better for Kagawa.

He just hasn't reached that level where regardless of what's going on, he can still perform close to his best. Not many players reach this level but it's the sort of players fans love to have in their team.

Still and yet, he should play more imo because he signifies a move to a more progressive style. But looks like he's on his way out.
 
B20 said:


Looking at this, he did worse than I recall. Two good actions and one bog standard pass out wide. Aside from those, the only successful actions he had were backpasses. The rest were either misplaced passes, shrugged off the ball or failing to exert pressure in a meaningful way.

I think a manager like Moyes will be looking at mistakes made and thinking his positives don't outweigh that.
Click to expand...


I posted during the match how he would so often get close to a player offering the option for a simple pass yet the ball would go long and nothing would come of it.

I actually posted after he came short to receive the ball from Young to keep the move alive and young completely ignored him crossing the ball into the box and losing possession. That's when I thought how can anybody blame him when players won't pass to him even when he is free, they won't pass and move looking to build something that will lead to a created chance.

So he didn't get on the end of crosses and so he didn't get the ball and boot it up the pitch. But that's probably a good thing, is it not?

If we want to move to a system that relies on a lot more movement then Kagawa would help, watch his movement and then see how static others are around him. Considering the lack of time he had to make an impact and the lack of movement of those around him, I think his performance compared to his team mates was fine especially considering he hasn't played a game in a while.
 
Sean_RedDevil said:
I think...i really think he should in CM along Carrick......he can't be worse than Cleverley/Fellaini/Fletcher in this position

We should try it against West Brom
Click to expand...

The only problem really is physicality for him. You do need to be quite physical in the middle in the EPL, otherwise you will get bashed around so easily.

Plus the fact Moyes would never think of doing this.
 
Red Shorts said:
The only problem really is physicality for him. You do need to be quite physical in the middle in the EPL, otherwise you will get bashed around so easily...
Click to expand...

This is the only 'defense' of Moyes' management of him. Although you have to wonder why he doesn't just play Kagawa centrally in a game, let him get roughed up, and then lean into the refs about possible racism. Any manager who wanted to use Kagawa centrally in the league would have to do it sooner or later.

He did it for Januzaj. Maybe he felt he couldn't get two players the same result in one season. Maybe Moyes.
 
Red Shorts said:
The only problem really is physicality for him. You do need to be quite physical in the middle in the EPL, otherwise you will get bashed around so easily.

Plus the fact Moyes would never think of doing this.
Click to expand...

Mata isn't a physical player. Creative players don't need to be physical. Put all them Spanish midgets in our attack and I bet you they run riot in the 'phydical' EPL.
 
Here's why he doesn't play

Because in order for him to play, he needs the team to play it short, and move around with him to create space, penetrating the defence with through ball... basically, everything that we aren't at the moment.

Moyes can't and don't understand the scheme of that kind of football, hence he decided not to play Kagawa, and persisting with his cross cross cross all day. In a team with cross phylosophy, Kagawa won't matter and only wasting a space Moyes could use for another DM to protect the back 4.

It's not so hard to grasp... Moyes... is just clueless to any other formation other than his pass it to wingback and let them cross from deep.

Midfield chess game is not his forte.
 
He'll do great for some other club next season. He's a quality footballer.
 
It's not a question about cross all day. That's been a bit over exaggerated because of a few games this season.

The problem is and has been for a long time is that we are just not a team that has been coached to have a lot of movement in the way we see other teams play. When we bought Kagawa, that was the hope of many, that it signaled a departure from our some what static way of playing to one that would require more movement and shorter, more intricate.

It did not materialize under Fergie and it's certainly not been something Moyes has got the team to try and do. As such a player like Kagawa just doesn't fit in our current mode of playing. At least Mata is capable of making the more longer passes or the ones over the top, something that is not natural at all to Kagawa.

It is unfair to say to Kagawa he needs to be able to adapt or he isn't good enough. He'd be plenty good enough in more modern systems that don't rely on players standing still after making 1 or 2 passes or standing off 30 yards from their closest team mate.

If Moyes stays then Kagawa and the club should look to part ways by mutual consent. He is never going to be able to contribute much in the way we play football currently.
 
TheReligion said:
Why doesn't he get more game time? Surely we can accommodate him
Click to expand...

I don't think Moyes has any intention of doing so. There's been times when he hasn't even made the bench so that's an indication of where he is in the pecking order.
 
I knew I wasn't seeing things when I saw Kagawa in space time and again and never getting the ball.. this is embarrassing.

 
That video pretty much is all thats wrong with us. It also clearly shows why Kagawa isnt showing his ability. the guy cant even get on the ball its like we arent allowed to pass to the middle.
 
Watching that it seems our players are completely incapable to think for themselves. 'Shinji is in space ah feck it I'll lump it up or out wide for another cross,' and 'Shinji's made space for me, I know I'll just stand there and look at the ball for a few minutes' seem to be the only things they're thinking in that video.
 
Kagawa is not completely blameless for his performances but that video is ridiculous. You can't expect him to show his ability if the players don't pass him the ball or do so when it is too late and he's closed down. And even with us choosing to forgo giving him the ball on occasions, he was still one of our best players.
 
You can understand Adnan taking his place (although Adnan may not be as effective yet), its incomprehensible how Kagawa hasn't taken Youngs spot on the left.

If there aren't substantial reasons then it goes down as a massive clanger. Mind you Fergie was guilty of the dame, only difference is Adnan
 
Mel_F said:
That video is depressing to watch.
Click to expand...

It's been pretty much like that for almost every game. Yet people still complain that he doesn't influence the game enough. Pretty hard to influence the game when no-one passes you the ball unless you're on the touchline.

He shows for the ball time and time again in the middle and gets ignored. Notice how it always goes to the wing, even if he's in an acre of space in the centre. And it's not just for Kagawa either. In that game, the same happened to RVP as well, where he'd call the the ball to his feet in the middle, and inevitably it'd be punted to the wing and then a hopeless cross or Young/Valencia would lose it before they even got the cross off. It's like the area between midfield and attack is the Bermuda Triangle and our players have strict instructions never to play the ball in there.

Look at the sequence at 1:20 - Welbeck receives the ball with time to turn and get his head up. Kagawa is in TONS of space in that danger zone where he's thru the midfield but far out enough for the defence to not be able to cover him, a perfect spot to set up a through ball or have a long range ping. Yet Welbeck passes it 5 yards to Young, who's then incapable of getting a cross in and runs into the defender and we lose the ball. Or the sequence at 0:58 where Rio had a clear window to get a quick pass off. Instead he dawdles and Shinji has to run back virtually into our own half to collect it off him, yet still with a simple give and go with Carrick, is able to create space and get the ball to Evra with the defense backpedling.
 
What a depressing watch that video is :(

Kagawa is such a delight to watch as a player, what a waste. Can we play him at the same time as Mata? I doubt he would waste all those opportunities to pass to him in space.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.