With Young and Valencia on the wings Nani would seemingly be relegated to a substitute role, unless of course Ferguson moved him to a more central role.
“But wait! Nani’s always been winger!” I hear you cry, “how can we move him into the middle?”
Well thanks for asking, allow me to elucidate my hypothesis. Nani has shown time and time again, thatr despite his ability for using both feet, when it comes to his left he much prefers shooting with it than he does crossing -although I now you could argue he prefers shooting to crossing with any foot but I’m sure you get my point.
If Nani was deployed in the centre of the park, he could still run at defenders, he could still latch onto through balls like he did last season, from a similar position- Bolton away, City at home, yet he’d also have the wide man as an option to lay the ball off to.
The other argument would be that in Wayne Rooney, United already have an attacking player that can occupy the role just behind the striker. I’m not disputing this what I’m suggesting is that United employ a formation that can accomodate both.
By having say Chicharito up top then Rooney and Nani behind him with Darren Fletcher, Park, Anderson, or Michael Carrick, in front of the back four, then Young and Valencia on the wings United may well be able to have their cake and eat it.
I know that may seem a little gung-ho having five attacking players in the same line-up, not to mention the fact you’d also miss out on playing a certain Mr Ryan Giggs but let me ask you this, is the suggested line up all that different from what we saw at times last season? Carrick and Giggs with Rooney off Chicharito and Park and Valencia out wide was used on several occasions. Admittedly Park does a lot more grafting than Nani ever would but then again Nani’s more likely to put teams on the backfoot. giving United a ‘attack is the best form of defence’ type edge.
This is all conjecture of course, the whole experiment could be a disaster of epic proportion leading all sorts of catasrophies and the imminent disbanding of the club. Or would it? Why not give it a try against City in the charity, sorry Community Shield? If it doesnt work its not the end of the world and if it does, then maybe we can unleash it again against West Brom and really take the season by storm.
Have I gone in off the deep end or is there a small island of sense in my ocean of dribble? Feel free to comment suggest and abuse below.
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Nani doesn’t have the vision to play a central role.
Thought about this myself after the Barca game. Look at their midfield, gifted midgets with quick feet and the ability to beat a man. I would like to see Nani and Valencia rotating between the right wing and right sided centre mid position, and Anderson and Young doing the same on the left, abit more total football, a bit more flair. You may say that there isn’t a holding midfielder in the mix, well nor is there one for Barca really.
you are probably right with the formation as this is what fergie is seemingly buying for… a 4-1-2-2-1 type formation with one holding player, two attacking mid two wide forwards and a central striker. providing hernandez is the striker fergie can have his pick of any of nani, valencia, young, rooney, nasri (if bought) as the wide forwards and rooney, nasri, sneijder (again if bought), young, anderson or giggs as the central attacking mids….. for me this kind of puts nani waaaay behind in the pecking order, but it looks to be this new formation for next year esp in europe, also i wouldnt be surprised to see jones played as the single holding player
i think Nani have to be given that starting role opportunity to show that he has each and everything to be the first choice. Due to antonio valencia only fancies the right wing, with the arrival of Young who can play on both sides, it will work out when see Nani on right and Young on the left as they wil going to enterchange allover the game then you bring in Valencia to finish up the job. Lets Nani stay honestly…
It seems united wil hve difficult tym 2 organise asingle team