Shinji Kagawa

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He was poor yesterday but what people expected from him I don't know.

He isn't a flat track bully but at the same time he does depend on having movement and options around him. He doesn't have the physical skills to beat five people on his own but what he can do, if others play with him, is create space in tight situations and maintain possession.

Ultimately I think he'll fail here as Moyes doesn't seem to place any value on those attributes and that is why ultimately I think Moyes will fail.
 
Mad Winger said:
It all boils down to whether or not you think Kagawa had a good first season. It's a matter of perception.

I think he had a 7 out of 10 season. Good enough to be considered good(especially for being his first season in a new league and a new system), but not good enough to be considered an integral part of the team. He had a good goals/assist return in terms of minutes played, he worked hard, did very few mistakes, and managed to pull off some sexy moves while playing. That's totally fine by me. It would be nice if he won us more games, but that will come as long as he gets consistent playtime.

Moyes has effectively ruined Kagawa's progression.
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To be fair, it shouldn't be. He had a good season. Everybody who watched United last season should be able to realize that.

He wasn't integral, neither brilliant, and he never make a place in starting eleven his own (mainly because for 2 places there was him, Welbeck, Nani, Valenica, Young and Chicharito fighting, so it was seriously hard for any of them to be definite starters) but he did good in the limited time he had. A good goal/assist return, some good moves and the team played well when he was on the center of it.

This year is a totally different story. People can claim that he has been bad (he has) but he has been anyway as good as Mata (or as bad as him, depending on the point of view). Only Rooney and De Gea have been good this season. So you have either to completely give an amnesty to all players this season, or think that all of them have been turned to shit.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Not as Manchester United players, no.

Which is also relevant to the undeserved status that Kagawa has amongst many posters on here.
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Ah, I thought you were talking about them as players in general, not their United careers only.
 
Revan said:
To be fair, it shouldn't be. He had a good season. Everybody who watched United last season should be able to realize that.

He wasn't integral, neither brilliant, and he never make a place in starting eleven his own (mainly because for 2 places there was him, Welbeck, Nani, Valenica, Young and Chicharito fighting, so it was seriously hard for any of them to be definite starters) but he did good in the limited time he had. A good goal/assist return, some good moves and the team played well when he was on the center of it.

This year is a totally different story. People can claim that he has been bad (he has) but he has been anyway as good as Mata (or as bad as him, depending on the point of view). Only Rooney and De Gea have been good this season. So you have either to completely give an amnesty to all players this season, or think that all of them have been turned to shit.
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I didn't see it. I thought he was okay. Pretty underwhelming at times. A few nice flashes of ability.

Based on his Dortmund career I think he can be a success. Based on his United career I think he'll be lucky not to be moved on. I'd prefer the former, particularly if we ended up with a new manager, but I don't weep for the loss of this great talent. Great talents make themselves indispensable.
 
Did feck all when he came on but I cant really blame him for that. He should in relaity have started the match up top with Rooney and Mata to have been able to influence the game early on and possibly give us some cutting edge.
 
Revan said:
Mata too. Mata even is a regular and is getting games in rows, something that Kagawa never did under Moyes. Yet he is equally disappointing.

It would be awesome when people will realize that if all good players (bar Rooney and De Gea) are playing shit means that they aren't to blame for that.
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Mata was better than Kagawa yesterday. Even Cleverley was better. The problem with Kagawa is that he poo's himself when an opponent is in a 5 yard vicinity of him thus losing balance and the ball or trying to play an instinctive pass which generally fails. Has he had a fair chance? Probably not. SAF did not utilise him properly and neither has David Moyes.

The lad needs to leave and rebuild his career. He just never made it here.
 
Brophs said:
I didn't see it. I thought he was okay. Pretty underwhelming at times. A few nice flashes of ability.

Based on his Dortmund career I think he can be a success. Based on his United career I think he'll be lucky not to be moved on. I'd prefer the former, particularly if we ended up with a new manager, but I don't weep for the loss of this great talent. Great talents make themselves indispensable.
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I think that last season he was better than Nani, Valencia, Young and Welbeck. You can say that that is having low standards, but still he was our fourth best attacking player. He was underwhelming in a few games, decent in a few others and good in some others. Not great, but very acceptable for someone who changed the league, was playing out of position and was injured for a couple of months.

On BVB he was very good. Excellent on his last half of season when he was the best player in the league during those months. Which shows that he has the potential and the ability.

If we change the manager, I hope he stays here because good players doesn't grow in tree [/peterstorey]. However with Moyes is a bit pointless, he won't show his ability on our current setup. Neither will Mata, but that maybe is for an another discussion.
 
Lowkey said:
Mata was better than Kagawa yesterday. Even Cleverley was better. The problem with Kagawa is that he poo's himself when an opponent is in a 5 yard vicinity of him thus losing balance and the ball or trying to play an instinctive pass which generally fails. Has he had a fair chance? Probably not. SAF did not utilise him properly and neither has David Moyes.

The lad needs to leave and rebuild his career. He just never made it here.
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I seriously don't see how Mata has been any better yesterday, or in any game for us for that matter. Both are completely invisible and all they can do seems to be nice short passes. Cleverley was awful yesterday, far worse than Kagawa.
 
Lowkey said:
Mata was better than Kagawa yesterday. Even Cleverley was better. The problem with Kagawa is that he poo's himself when an opponent is in a 5 yard vicinity of him thus losing balance and the ball or trying to play an instinctive pass which generally fails. Has he had a fair chance? Probably not. SAF did not utilise him properly and neither has David Moyes.

The lad needs to leave and rebuild his career. He just never made it here.
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I don't see where you get that from as Kagawa was the only player yesterday who didn't completely collapse when he got pressured, and he was actually able to make a pass to somebody in a red shirt (unlike literally every United player).
 
Lowkey said:
Mata was better than Kagawa yesterday. Even Cleverley was better. The problem with Kagawa is that he poo's himself when an opponent is in a 5 yard vicinity of him thus losing balance and the ball or trying to play an instinctive pass which generally fails. Has he had a fair chance? Probably not. SAF did not utilise him properly and neither has David Moyes.

The lad needs to leave and rebuild his career. He just never made it here.
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As much as I rate Mata, but neither was he better yesterday nor has he a better first season with us compared to Kagawa.
 
Sultan said:
Never heard so many excuses for an under performing player. Anyone, or anything but his fault.

"The cult of Kagawa"

Spoony
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An under performing player who has shown the deficiencies of Moyes' system effectively well. And when he has been given a chance in a system he thrives in, he has looked excellent. I find it to be absurd that people believe only one factor has contributed to this. It's either the system or Kagawa - it's binary thinking. Your opinion isn't different (structure-wise) to those who think it's solely the system, and that's unfair IMO. Mata hasn't exactly been great, but he's been afforded less criticism.
 
I personally agree with the line of thinking that Mata's (relative) struggles so far point to our style of play and setup being the main factor in Kagawa's struggles. It is unfortunate that Kagawa hasn't used these difficult conditions to improve his game and become a more versatile player but I still think he'd be great for us if we played a quicker, fluid, short passing-orientated game.
 
MoneyMay said:
An under performing player who has shown the deficiencies of Moyes' system effectively well. And when he has been given a chance in a system he thrives in, he has looked excellent. I find it to be absurd that people believe only one factor has contributed to this. It's either the system or Kagawa - it's binary thinking. Your opinion isn't different (structure-wise) to those who think it's solely the system, and that's unfair IMO. Mata hasn't exactly been great, but he's been afforded less criticism.
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Who do we blame last seasons underwhelming performances on?

I still believe he's a class act but has only shown it in flashes. He needs to impose himself a lot more in games. I've seen enough of Mata to know he's been a class act in a Chelsea shirt. It's too early to judge Mata as a United player.
 
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Sultan said:
Who do we blame last seasons underwhelming performances on?

I still believe he's a class act but has only shown it in flashes. He needs to impose himself a lot more in games. I've seen enough of Mata to know he's a class act in a Chelsea shirt. It's too early to judge Mata as a United player.
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Injuries? He started the season off very well, got injured for a few months and then took a bit to get back up to speed while the rest of the team was playing well and firmly in a title race. Then in the last bit he got back into the team, and started plenty of games. I put it a month or 2 ago but last season he started something like over 70% or 75% of the games he was fit for, compared to just like 30% or so this season. He was adapting to a new league, different style, and was definitely growing in the team. Fergie also said many times that his second season he'd have a much bigger impact and would become a key player for us, he just needed a tiny bit of time to adjust to the premier league, which is fair especially when you get an injury that keeps you out for like 2 months early on in his first season.
 
bosnian_red said:
Injuries? He started the season off very well, got injured for a few months and then took a bit to get back up to speed while the rest of the team was playing well and firmly in a title race. Then in the last bit he got back into the team, and started plenty of games. I put it a month or 2 ago but last season he started something like over 70% or 75% of the games he was fit for, compared to just like 30% or so this season. He was adapting to a new league, different style, and was definitely growing in the team. Fergie also said many times that his second season he'd have a much bigger impact and would become a key player for us, he just needed a tiny bit of time to adjust to the premier league, which is fair especially when you get an injury that keeps you out for like 2 months early on in his first season.
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He has to earn a starting place. He simply hasn’t when given the chance. A few pretty moments of brilliance does not count, and the coaches will have taken note. No doubt his best position is in the middle but there’s no way he will get preference over Rooney/Mata in the middle or Welbeck/Januzaj on the left. They have simply been better and stronger than Kagawa when played.
 
Sultan said:
He has to earn a starting place. He simply hasn’t when given the chance. A few pretty moments of brilliance does not count, and the coaches will have taken note. No doubt his best position is in the middle but there’s no way he will get preference over Rooney/Mata in the middle or Welbeck/Januzaj on the left. They have simply been better and stronger than Kagawa when played.
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Not arguing there. He hasn't been as good as he can be, anywhere near that for that matter. My complaint is that nobody in our team has earned a starting spot other then Rooney and De Gea based on this season. Has Welbeck been good enough to justify starting him up front over RVP or forcing Rooney back to the hole and Mata out wide? Not in my opinion.
Anyway, its not like Kagawa has to start every game. He's done enough to be a very useful squad player at the very least, and under a good style that suits him (and most of our other players really) he'd be good enough to be an important player for us. He's hardly getting any minutes though, which is the main problem here. We're just wasting a very talented player and hardly giving him a chance in the first place.
 
Kagawa would flourish in a team like City, with a narrow midfield, short link up between players like Nasri Silva, then wing back overlapping to provide Width.

Problem with United is, piss poor wing play, throw Kagawa out wide to compensate for it he should be inside with Mata doing short passing working space, yet it's KAGAWA go out as far on the left/right as you can, Mata you do the same, now... never go inside, there should be no midfield centrally! need NATURAL wingers with end product, for example Griezmann, or play narrow.

There's moments in the game where we have NOBODY in the midfield, just a back four and the rest on the touchline, with 2 up front... it's absolutely ridiculous, where are ideas being traded, where are the tactical boards telling people their positions.
 
TheNewEra said:
Kagawa would flourish in a team like City, with a narrow midfield, short link up between players like Nasri Silva, then wing back overlapping to provide Width.

Problem with United is, piss poor wing play, throw Kagawa out wide to compensate for it he should be inside with Mata doing short passing working space, yet it's KAGAWA go out as far on the left/right as you can, Mata you do the same, now... never go inside, there should be no midfield centrally! need NATURAL wingers with end product, for example Griezmann, or play narrow.

There's moments in the game where we have NOBODY in the midfield, just a back four and the rest on the touchline, with 2 up front... it's absolutely ridiculous, where are ideas being traded, where are the tactical boards telling people their positions.
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Fro what I've observed Mata, and Kagawa have a tendency to drift in the middle, and play most of their football in central parts of the pitch.
 
Sultan said:
Fro what I've observed Mata, and Kagawa have a tendency to drift in the middle, and play most of their football in central parts of the pitch.
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I saw none of that against city, when there was there was no support.
 
TheNewEra said:
I saw none of that against city, when there was there was no support.
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Cleverley and then Valencia played on the right. Mata played in the middle, and Kagawa when he came on played very close to Mata. Evra ran the wing on his own.
 
Sultan said:
He has to earn a starting place. He simply hasn’t when given the chance. A few pretty moments of brilliance does not count, and the coaches will have taken note. No doubt his best position is in the middle but there’s no way he will get preference over Rooney/Mata in the middle or Welbeck/Januzaj on the left. They have simply been better and stronger than Kagawa when played.
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I feel like we've got double standards here. Should Ashley Young not have to earn his starting place too? He's been consistently underwhelming and we've played poorly as a team when he's been involved(may be coincidence, but I don't think so) whereas I honestly feel that without being a stand-out performer we've played better football/created more chances with Kagawa in the team. I don't even expect him to be as good as he was at Dortmund, but surely he's shown enough to get more minutes than Young and Cleverley? That's the bit I don't get. He needs to earn his spot as a guarenteed starter, but as a squad player he should still be getting more opportunities...
 
CapeTownRed said:
I feel like we've got double standards here. Should Ashley Young not have to earn his starting place too? He's been consistently underwhelming and we've played poorly as a team when he's been involved(may be coincidence, but I don't think so) whereas I honestly feel that without being a stand-out performer we've played better football/created more chances with Kagawa in the team. I don't even expect him to be as good as he was at Dortmund, but surely he's shown enough to get more minutes than Young and Cleverley? That's the bit I don't get. He needs to earn his spot as a guarenteed starter, but as a squad player he should still be getting more opportunities...
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Yup, if he was getting a fair chance and he still wasn't performing then fair enough. Reality is that everyone else is getting way more chances then he is for whatever reason, despite not performing.
 
I'll reply to your post later, Sultan. Thanks for the response.

Can we please not use the through balls statistic for Kagawa? I've seen it mentioned a few times. It's pointless in this discussion. He completed 5/13 through balls last season in the Premier League. Rooney completed the most: 8/20. On average, it's the same as Rooney's (in less starts though).
 
CapeTownRed said:
I feel like we've got double standards here. Should Ashley Young not have to earn his starting place too? He's been consistently underwhelming and we've played poorly as a team when he's been involved(may be coincidence, but I don't think so) whereas I honestly feel that without being a stand-out performer we've played better football/created more chances with Kagawa in the team. I don't even expect him to be as good as he was at Dortmund, but surely he's shown enough to get more minutes than Young and Cleverley? That's the bit I don't get. He needs to earn his spot as a guarenteed starter, but as a squad player he should still be getting more opportunities...
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You can point to most of the team not playing well, but still get games. Moyes simply does not have many options to drop these players. Kagawa plays in a position where we are overstocked. Young would have got a lot less minutes had Nani been fit. Cleverley only plays due to our lack of midfield options.
 
The kind of intelligent off the ball movement, finding pockets of space to pass to, making short passes to break down the opposition defense... these kinds of things are what this team needs and Kagawa is one of the players who excels at the qualities I mentioned (same can be said of Juan Mata). Kagawa cannot thrive in this current system of covering space because players are too far apart from each other, leaving no room for creativity.
 
MoneyMay said:
Can we please not use the through balls statistic for Kagawa? I've seen it mentioned a few times. It's pointless in this discussion. He completed 5/13 through balls last season. Rooney completed the most: 8/20. On average, it's the same as Rooney's (in less starts though).
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So he shares the first place with Rooney? Big difference..

He's still got the 4th best goals/assist ratio(by quite a big margin as well), the best stamina(if the BEEP test holds any value), and a ridiculously high passing accuracy for playing that high up the field. Most players with 90% passing accuracy or above, are CMs and CBs.
 
Why are you repeating yourself? I'm not here to debate Kagawa's quality or to degrade his capabilities. Using the through ball stat, however, isn't what @Brophs is looking for. Though I thought Kagawa had a good first season, there's nothing wrong with what Brophs said.
 
MoneyMay said:
Using the through ball stat, however, isn't what @Brophs is looking for.
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How do you know that?

What statistics are those then?
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This is what he wrote. I concluded that he wanted all sorts of stats that are favorable to Kagawa. Amongst the passes that go down in the statistics, the through ball is the most difficult one to pull off. I see no reason why I shouldn't have included this stat then. Especially when it's combined with his 90% general passing accuracy. It shows us that Kagawa doesn't only play safe passes, as he's been criticized of doing in this thread.
 
Mad Winger said:
How do you know that?



This is what he wrote. I concluded that he wanted all sorts of stats that are favorable to Kagawa. Amongst the passes that go down in the statistics, the through ball is the most difficult one to pull off. I see no reason why I shouldn't have included this stat then. Especially when it's combined with his 90% general passing accuracy. It shows us that Kagawa doesn't only play safe passes, as he's been criticized of doing in this thread.
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I can predict the future, but seriously I don't know that and it's wrong for me to assume that. It's more to do with the context of this discussion. The reason for my initial post is that whether it's isolated or grouped with other stats, through balls isn't going to change someone's opinions on Kagawa's season. I have no problem with the stat itself. Hopefully I've explained that well. Sorry if I've caused confusion.
 
CapeTownRed said:
I feel like we've got double standards here. Should Ashley Young not have to earn his starting place too? He's been consistently underwhelming and we've played poorly as a team when he's been involved(may be coincidence, but I don't think so) whereas I honestly feel that without being a stand-out performer we've played better football/created more chances with Kagawa in the team. I don't even expect him to be as good as he was at Dortmund, but surely he's shown enough to get more minutes than Young and Cleverley? That's the bit I don't get. He needs to earn his spot as a guarenteed starter, but as a squad player he should still be getting more opportunities...
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He should and that's why Ashley Young doesn't have a starting place. Kagawa does have more minutes than Young. It's been said several times in this thread that Kagawa has played more than Young but it is constantly looked past. What is so hard in understanding that Kagawa has played more than Young?

Kagawa and Cleverley are not competing for the same positions so I don't know what you are mentioning Cleverley for. Why has Ferdinand played more than Kagawa?
 
Brwned said:
I personally agree with the line of thinking that Mata's (relative) struggles so far point to our style of play and setup being the main factor in Kagawa's struggles. It is unfortunate that Kagawa hasn't used these difficult conditions to improve his game and become a more versatile player but I still think he'd be great for us if we played a quicker, fluid, short passing-orientated game.
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This.
 
The way I see it, there are 2 groups of players in our squad:

Wing play (Traditional) united style players: Nani, Young, Valencia, Januzaj

Middle (Continental) style players: Kagawa, Mata, Januzaj?, Carrick?

These two groups can't co-exist in one squad, for an axis of Kagawa, Mata, Januzaj, Carrick to play from the middle, we need to drop deeper, allow some space behind the oppo defend and eyeing for through pass, with winger's tucked in / FB overlapping occasionally since there's much space since we drop deeper.

If we emphasises on Wing play, then the midfield would have to tuck in near the defence, while the wingers generally should be more advance to penetrate and cross from the byline (ideally). We will be swarmed in the midfield because that is not the focal point of our attack.

This is the problem I see IMHO : Mata / Kagawa can't get game in the middle, because doing so while still being in Wing play mode means that they won't chip in defensively, the won't contribute much (unless they disobey their instructions and start playing expressively in the middle), with them in the squad, they need the whole system to be build exactly for their type of play. Something that is not Moyes' forte.

Hence it is why we are crying for Mata / Kagawa / Januzaj to start in the middle but seen none, because the problem lies deeper than that, it requires a change of phylosophy and scrap the whole formation and start from scratch. The next problem is : 1) Moyes either doesn't know how to create a continental style 2) Moyes trusted his wing play mode more and brings in players that supports his play (Baines/Coleman) 3) Moyes is just clueless.

I don't believe in a veteran manager can't see what's wrong with the squad, or can't see what a good player Kagawa was, but I can see a manager that's too out of his depth to fully develop a new tactical blueprint in a short span of half a season. You can't teach an old horse new tricks and all that.

When he finally got his players, we will improve, but we will not and never achieve the level of Barca/Bayern/Arsenal, at best we will be more successful in the percentage football and get 4th, but to dominate and challenge year in year out.. I doubted it. Hence is why I never think that Moyes is the right man for the job. 4th would be his holy grail, instead of his floor buffer
 
I've decided it's my fault he's been so underwhelming for the past two seasons. But yeah great player...
 
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