Monday, September 30, 2013

The curious case of Shinji Kagawa

My heart skipped a beat when I read this - "Man United Ready to Use Shinji Kagawa as Bait In Pursuit of Borussia Dortmund Center-Back". A constant attacking menace at Borussia, Kagawa had scored 29 goals in back to back successful Bundesliga campaigns which led to Sir Alex Ferguson parting with £17 million for the attacking midfielder. Since then he has played only 30 matches and scored 6 goals, in the process becoming the first Asian to score a hattrick in the EPL and has been named Asian Football Confederation International Player of the Year in 2012.

So, when I read that David Moyes was ready to offload him to get Mats Hummels, I was perplexed for a number of reasons. First, Kagawa is the only creative attacking midfielder in the United side. Second, he has never been given his favored no.10 role in which he had excelled at Dortmund and even Moyes agrees his best position may be number 10. Third, he has played just one league match till now against West Brom where he was fielded in a wide left position and was strangely substituted at half-time. Fourth, why get a center back instead of Kagawa when you can develop Smalling (who was brilliant in the win against Liverpool), Jones and Evans.

To conclude, he is an immensely talented player who brings a level of creativity and flair that is lacking in the likes of Ashley Young and Antonio Valencia. His attacking prowess was there for all to see when he rattled the crossbar from 20 yards against Liverpool in the 1-0 victory in the Capital One Cup. It might be that Moyes has to change a few things in order to make it work or Kagawa will have to adapt to a less favorable position on the left wing but either ways, United are better off with Shinji on the field than on the bench as was evident in both the wins over Bayer and Liverpool in which he had started because he adds a new dimension to the attack whenever he drifts inside.

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