Last Saturday gave many Manchester United fans their first opportunity to watch a promising youngster by the name of Adnan Januzaj. After only a handful of substitute appearances on the back of a solid pre-season, his match winning two goal performance away at Sunderland was an eye opener for European football with what can only be described as a ‘world class’ finish for his second.
Facing our third successive defeat of the season for the first time in over 11 years, it seemed as though David Moyes took a huge gamble in starting the youngster, that or a manager with huge confidence in his prospects. Small framed and not looking a day over 13, the winger may appear out of his depth in many people’s eyes but that he certainly isn’t, with great footwork and rapid pace, he seems to glide through opposition defences with ease and he is definitely not as weak as he looks, this is something the club trainers may work on in the coming years and try to bulk him up, but if it’s working, don’t try to fix it. The two goals were brilliant in different ways, his first may have been down to some poor Sunderland defending, running on to a hopeful pass he struck with precision into the left corner leaving the goalkeeper grounded on the deck, the second he watched until the second it had hit the net, a diagonal volley into the bottom right corner that would have left any goalkeeper in the world helpless, the skill to hit the ball like that at an awkward angle is credit to the hard work and class this youngster brings to the club.
The risk factor of playing Januzaj is a direct consequence of our wingers this season quite simply not performing well enough. Lacking in confidence and apparently ability too, the service from the wide areas has been one of many downfalls in such a poor start to the season. Antonio Valencia has shown some promising signs but still seems to be haunted by that number ‘7’ shirt whilst Ashley Young is slowly becoming the most disliked player in the entire club or history and Nani seems to be relaxed and sitting back on his old ways, with a lucrative new deal. One player I’m yet to mention in that list is Wilfried Zaha, many fans, including myself are confused why he has had no involvement in the first team this season, maybe the rumours of sleeping with the bosses daughter have escalated too far? Either way, the 20-year-old is a key part of the future of English football, though the decision not to let him go out on loan is very baffling if we are choosing not to utilise him ourselves. I know he’s training with very good players, but would it not be in our best interest to send him back to Palace or even a Sunderland to get some game time, I mean it did Danny Welbeck no harm and Nick Powell is a stand out player too for Wigan this season.
This brings me to the point of a very distracting element to Januzaj’s so far, short career. After a dream weekend, the issue of his current national status has brought widespread attention to club and country, with England head coach Roy Hodgson openly stating on BBC’s MOTD that they are keeping tabs on Adnan’s current movements on his national choice as he would love to have a talent of Januzaj’s quality playing for his country, although this sounds great for us English faithful, does it not worry you that we’d have to resort to this route to enable us to have a squad of quality players? Why aren’t we producing them ourselves, and why are players like Zaha just whittling away on the benches? Personally, I would love to see Januzaj wear the white of England one day, but we face stiff competition on securing him with him having as many as 5 countries to choose from. I hope this, along with a new deal at the club is resolved immediately; we don’t want another Paul Pogba situation on our hands.
After a troubling start to his United career, David Moyes would have welcomed this performance against Sunderland more than most, not many positives have come from his first few months other than keeping Rooney’s services, so hopefully this standout performance from Adnan will be a sign of things to come. Unfortunately for us the international weekend came at the wrong time, but here’s to hoping this momentum will carry us onwards and upwards to the Christmas period and with a successful Champions League period under our tight New Year belts.
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