Kagawa and other Transfer News

Arrivals

So this morning United's official website confirmed that a deal has been agreed on Shinji Kagawa. Should Kagawa get a UK working visa, the Japanese will be our first signing of the season.

Good addition to our team

To be honest with you all, I never heard of Kagawa before last February. I have only seen him play ONCE and that was during Dortmund's cup final vs Bayern. I thought he was pretty special on that day. I've obviously gone with the flow and, like most United fans, watched tens of Kagawa related Youtube videos. He looks impressive but these vids obviously could be deceptive. In fact I heard Shin's prone to giving the ball away quite often. Obviously there is no Youtube compilation of his top ten possession squandering moments in a Dortmund shirt. 

Ever since Hazard opted for a move to a manager-less Stamford Bridge, I've been asking myself whether I would have preferred Hazard to Kagawa(because let's face it, Kagawa's move to OT was pretty inevitable  after the Belgian moved to Chelsea). 

Twitter and United Fans Forums are brimming with messages comparing Kagawa's goal tally with Hazard's. The former scored 98 goals in 198 appearances while the latter scored 50 goals in 192 appearances. Upon this statistic, at face value, the Japanese looks far better than the Belgian. However, I have only come to realise that 57 of Kagawa's goals were scored in the Japanese league which, I believe, isn't anywhere near the French league. So we shouldn't let the 98 goals in 198 appearances deceive us. 

He's already got a winning mentality instilled in him

Kagawa DID score 21 goals in two seasons in the Bundesliga which is a very good tally for a midfielder playing in one of Europe's top leagues. During his stint with the Bundesliga outfit, Kagawa also managed 5 European goals and 3 domestic cup goals. Excellent stat that. It's been a while since one of our midfield players scored more then 10 goals. We don't have a goal scoring midfielder and hopefully the signing of Kagawa will change that. Carrick, Anderson, Cleverley and Fletcher put together will never amass a total of 15 goals in one season. Let's hope Kagawa is the goal scoring midfielder we badly needed. 

Shinji is also very capable of providing assists. The stat of 15 assists in 70 odd games is pretty decent.

His pace is also a welcoming improvement to our side. However, my only concern is that Kagawa seems to play in the Wayne Rooney position. So Fergie will probably have to adjust his tactics to fit the Japanese in.

I'm quite excited by the prospect of seeing this fine young footballer in United's colors next season. The Glazers and our shirt sponsors must be licking their lips in anticipation of the inevitable boom in United shirt sales in the Asian market. A win-win situation.

Departures


Pogba

Au Revoir?

Pogba is reportedly in Turin to complete his much publicised move to Juventus. He's an excellent young player. Probably the best player I've seen pull on the United youth shirt (I've never seen the class of '92 play with the youths!). However he has decided that the grass is greener in Turin. I can't phantom why he's pushing for such a move. The Italian league, in my opinion, isn't even in the top three European leagues. Further to this, the integrity of the players, coaches and officials in Italy is questionable. He'll probably use Juventus as a platform to greater things whenever he reaches his unquestionable potential.

Nani

Our only player who tries the audacious. I like him.

The rumour is that Nani will listen to offers from other clubs if United's new contract offer isn't appealing to him. While I agree that Nani is very very frustrating and a bit arrogant on the pitch, I hold on to my beliefs that this lad is one of the very few world class players we've got. I hope he doesn't get sold.






I'll update this blog whenever there's more transfer news.