Manchester United : Will Shinji Kagawa Stay With The Red Devils Or Will He Leave?

So much was expected of him when Manchester United announced the much awaited 12 million pounds signing of the Japanese playmaker and the Borussia Dortmund superstar Shinji Kagawa, hoping that he was the playmaker that United was missing for quite some time. But who knew that this decision of signing him would further end up in chaos and confusion where the former Dortmund man would not know that he would hardly get the chance to play and that too mostly out of his natural position.

In his first season last year, he was there for just 1316 minutes on the field, i.e., roughly 14 complete matches which is not what you expect a player of world class quality would get in his first season considering United’s attacking playmaking weakness. This season too in the premier league, he has managed to play just 1 match for complete 90 minutes, rest being in substitutions, total being 396 minutes for this season. Even worse he has been substituted just after 45 minutes in two matches this season without any reported injury suffered in those matches. This surely does not encourage a player’s confidence as his performance surely didn’t deserve a substitution out of the game. Many argue that Sir Alex Ferguson would have used him better than David Moyes, but I doubt that even SAF was able to do that as during his time also, Kagawa never looked a perfect fit.

KAGAWA’s STYLE OF PLAY :
Kagawa is a technically and creatively gifted attacking midfielder and a perfect fit for no.10 role just in the hole behind the striker. He has a fantastic composure on the ball, brilliant first touches and excellent passing vision especially in final third thus creating immense goal scoring opportunities. When playing for Dortmund, he was the centre of the attacking play as Dortmund’s players were always running into space, had good movement and always made themselves available for combination play which suited Kagawa fully as he was able to make full use of his playmaking abilities. During the 2 successful bundesliga winning seasons he played for the Blacks and Yellows, he gave 71 appearances and scored 29 goals in all the competitions which is quite an emphatic performance.
UNITED’s STYLE OF PLAY :
Over the years, the Red devils have always played their favorite 4-4-2 formation with two wingers wide on the left and right and two strikers upfront. However last year, due to the prolific signing of the Arsenal captain Robin Van Persie, we saw SAF changing the formation to a typical 4-4-1-1 instead of the usual 4-4-2 where Wayne Rooney played the no.10 role in the hole just behind the lone striker Van Persie. Needless to say, this took away the natural role of Kagawa which he was much more suited for than Rooney albeit the brilliance of Rooney himself at any position.

MISMATCH :
Most of the last season Kagawa played, he had to play either at the left flank or deep in midfield, even behind Rooney which was in no way comfortable for the Japanese playmaker. He is not known for his long passing but for his extraordinary quick short passing which did not suit United’s new style of play which favored a lot of long balls by the defenders or the midfielders, very unusual to see the Red devils play like that.

Due to this new style of launching the ball to wide players when launching an attack, Kagawa is often being overlooked in the middle and as he is not receiving the ball in the area where he can create damage which is in between the lines, he looks tame and not able to provide any threat with his technical abilities and quick thinking.

At times, we have seen the United players totally clueless in between the field about whom to pass, most of the game goes inside their own half, their movements have become so static that they don’t provide Kagawa enough options to pick them up and build up the play . Kagawa’s best ability is to spot the movement of his teammates and pick them out with his passes even in tight spaces or when there are opposition players around him, but due to limited options, he can only make simple sideway or forward passes.

Kagawa himself has summed it up the best “We seem to pass the ball sideways a lot but I want team-mates to start giving me the ball from all areas and angles. I need to speak to them about this, because I want them to have the trust in me to play the ball forward”.

However, Kagawa was able to show the real quality of his game this season when he was granted his natural no.10 position in the Champions league game in which United thrashed Bayer Leverkusen 5-0 at their own home. He was at his natural best and was involved in creating almost all the 5 goals and also covered the maximum distance amongst all the United players.

TOUGH PATH AHEAD :
This is an illustration of the positive things to come if and only if Kagawa is offered his no.10 position in which he is extremely lethal. But then, the whole dilemma comes to the fact that where will Rooney play? Considering the fact that Rooney has not yet signed a new deal, there is no way in which Moyes can risk Rooney’s present satisfactory role which might make him ponder again over his future. Thus, Moyes needs to stand up and take a tough decision as to how to proceed ahead and what formation to follow when Van Persie returns from injury and he has both Rooney and Kagawa fit to play but no idea how to play all three of them together with no one playing out of their best positions. Kagawa is a talent which United at no cost can afford to lose, so it’s better that Moyes starts giving him more playing time to bring out the best of him.