Shinji Kagawa's anguish is a sign of the times at David Moyes' Manchester United

 
Ian Herbert26 February 2014

The only explanations for Manchester United’s awful defeat at Olympiakos came in the fragmented comments of a few foreign players with journalists from their own nations.

They included Japan’s Shinji Kagawa, who did not require words to explain what seems to be an endless personal unravelling. You could see the angst written across the face of a player who arrived at Old Trafford full of optimism and has descended to a place of uncertainty and insecurity about his game.

United stride through their false dawns — new player in Juan Mata, new deal for Wayne Rooney — but Kagawa’s torture goes on much the same.

“The manager told me to get on the ball as much as I could and create opportunities,” was a rough translation of what Kagawa said he was urged to do from the bench and in that observation you sensed the loss of what United’s philosophy might be.

It was all hands to the pump to rescue things last night and there was very little sense of how the team were supposed to go about their work.

That was reinforced afterwards when Robin van Persie told Dutch broadcasters about other players operating in his “spaces”, leading him to change how he plays.

The 2-0 defeat against the Greek champions leaves United’s hopes of progression to the quarter-finals still better than Manchester City or Arsenal’s but it also makes you wonder how the great turnaround in fortunes that they seem to be waiting for might actually come about.

The defeats keep being characterised as something against the natural order of things, repairable with some spending this summer, though we are getting to the stage when David Moyes must show he can conjure up something better out of the players he has.

The departures of Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs at the end of the season mean that the usual quota of two or three changes each summer at Old Trafford will be taken up by natural wastage alone.

There will be three or four new buys — but many more than that and United are going resemble a club in as much flux as Tottenham at the start of the campaign. It means that the manager has got to do more with the players he has. Many of them are in a state of despair, seven months into his tenure.

It is in the natural course of things that a new manager will not fancy some of his inheritance but somewhere amid the time Moyes spends on the training field, he needs to find a way of introducing something to those players; a way of thinking and playing that they did not possess before. Brendan Rodgers’s work with Jordan Henderson and Jon Flanagan at Liverpool demonstrates that negative first impressions should not be everlasting.

Kagawa is someone who would be receptive to ideas. He is an earnest soul, ready every time he stops to speak to say it is up to him to adapt and deliver more.

The 24-year-old midfielder was at it again last night, blaming himself for not making the step up, even though his confidence appears shot.

He has started only four games since last appearing for United in the closing group-stage game at home against Shakhtar on December.

Here is an example of the raw material with whom Moyes could work — proving the manager to be more of a motivator and innovator than his Old Trafford tenure has so far suggested he might be.

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