Good read for any who subscribes to The Athletic. LVG once again comes off as a pompous ass in his reply to a request for comment.
Adnan Januzaj article in The Athletic
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Good stuff. Appreciate the link. Great read.
I allways like him Januzaj. I wish we did buy him back.
I read it earlier. Starts off as if it’s going to illuminate as to what went wrong and then doesn’t. Basically just a few quotes from Warren Joyce.
Saw the title and thought what a load of shit. He was never meant to be the next big thing at United, he did okay at youth level (nothing compared to say Greenwood or Rashford) and then scored a belter on his debut. From there he was never really good enough and only ever stood out in a shit season under Moyes.
Haven’t read the article however so if you wanna post bits that’d be class
Haven’t read the article however so if you wanna post bits that’d be class
That's insane.
Thanks for sharing.
Never had much time for Januzaj, was so overrated by himself and some of our fans.
And yes I am aware he will look like prime Messi tomorrow against us.
And yes I am aware he will look like prime Messi tomorrow against us.
Couldn’t believe what I was reading .
What were we thinking
What were we thinking
I figured we couldn't share things behind a paywall.As the Manchester United players came down for breakfast in their five-star hotel, there was a whiteboard showing their schedule for the day in black marker pen.
They were in Hong Kong, preparing for their first season after Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, and each morning a member of staff would update this board with training times and all the other details about when they were eating, the arrangements for community events and everything else that went into a pre-season tour.
Yet on that particular day, somebody had rubbed out the correct arrangements and inserted a concoction of bogus times. Appointments were missed. People went missing. All the meticulous organisation to plan the day was jeopardised by a practical joke.
The story has never been told before and, according to well-placed sources, the finger of suspicion was pointed at Alexander Buttner, the reserve left-back.
Buttner had signed from Vitesse the previous year and, behind the scenes, had a side to him that some members of staff did not like. But the suspicion was also that he had been aided and abetted by Adnan Januzaj, the player tipped to be the next star of the team.
Buttner, Januzaj and Rio Ferdinand at the pre-season camp in 2013 (Photo: John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)
It was David Moyes’ getting-to-know-you period and his staff had misgivings about the way Januzaj, then 18, had teamed up with a player who was six years older and not always seen as a positive influence. OK, it was only a practical joke, but it was not the sort of prank that would have happened if Ferguson was in charge. And it was decided somebody ought to have a quiet word with Januzaj to advise him to think carefully about what was expected of a United player.
Did the message get through? It doesn’t appear so, according to some of the people who were involved at the time. Januzaj, one says, thought he knew better. “But he was young. To be fair, he was very young.”
There is a lovely passage in Ferguson’s autobiography about the first time he saw the schoolboy Ryan Giggs running with the ball at his feet on United’s training pitches.
It was one of those rare and priceless moments, Ferguson wrote, that made all the sweat and frustration and misery of management worthwhile.
“A gold miner who has searched every part of the river or mountain and then suddenly finds himself staring at a nugget could not feel more exhilaration than I did watching Giggs that day. I shall always remember my first sight of him, floating over the pitch at the Cliff so effortlessly that you would have sworn his feet weren’t touching the ground.”
Januzaj was another nugget. He had signed from Anderlecht’s youth system, aged 16, after growing up in Brussels as the son of Kosovar-Albanian parents. He carried his head high and had a natural grace, beautifully balanced, when he took on opponents. He was, in Ferguson’s eyes, an ideal wearer of United’s colours.
“There has been Federico Macheda, James Wilson and a few others who people have gone mad about for a brief moment in time,” recalls one former colleague. “But Januzaj felt different. Everyone believed he’d be another Giggs. He was poster-boy material, how he played, how he looked. He had charisma. He was a fun, charming kid. Some people thought he looked flashy on the pitch and because he had a slightly ‘Eurotrash’ fashion sense, but he was lovely.”
Eric Steele was United’s goalkeeping coach at the time and saw, close up, the work put in by reserve-team manager Warren Joyce to prepare Januzaj for the Premier League.
“I remember when Januzaj first came in, he was a talent,” Steele says. “I’d heard a lot about him. He had an arrogance and a swagger, which I think a lot of people in the club liked. But he had to get fit.
“Warren said he had to toughen up, get fitter, get stronger. He was really tough on him initially. I remember in one game Warren actually put him up front. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘Steeley, he’s got to learn. I am going to be very interested to see how he takes it. Because you know what will happen, centre-halves will kick him. It will be physical for him’.
“You were getting him well prepared to go in with the first team. All of a sudden, you had the likes of Paul Scholes and Darren Fletcher and if you didn’t stand up, you would soon realise, ‘Wow’. That’s what Januzaj found when he first went in, ‘Wow’.”
Scholes, in particular, had a habit of introducing himself to newcomers with some of his more industrial challenges. “Januzaj came off at the end of that game and, I tell you what, he never shirked a tackle,” Steele says. “He got involved, he had a really good game as a No 9.”
Januzaj lifts the Barclays Under-21 Elite Group trophy in 2013 (Photo: Matthew Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)
Januzaj was, in the words of another United official, the “future of the club” — rated so highly that Ferguson broke one of his own managerial rules to mention the teenager, completely out of the blue, in a press conference just a few weeks before announcing his retirement. Watch out, Ferguson said, for “the Belgian boy” and then he leant back in his chair, nodding to the sound of his own words. Januzaj, he predicted, was going to be some player.
What has happened since serves as a reminder, perhaps, why Ferguson was usually reluctant to talk up young players too much.
Januzaj made such a spectacular entrance Moyes felt compelled to acclaim him as the best player of that age he had seen since Wayne Rooney. United’s executives recall their joy when Januzaj committed himself to a five-year contract one Friday evening at the Lowry hotel, the team’s regular pre-match meeting point. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain had all been trying to prise Januzaj away. The Football Association was exploring whether he could play for England. Moyes described him, in private, as “the young Cruyff” — and he didn’t mean Jordi.
As it is, Januzaj is preparing to take on his former club in the Europa League with a Real Sociedad side that has finished 12th, ninth and sixth in his three previous seasons in Spain. This season, they are fifth. Januzaj, now 26, has been to two World Cups with Belgium, which indicates he must have done something right. Closer inspection, however, shows he has been restricted to 12 caps, eight as a substitute, and has never managed a 90-minute appearance for his country. His only senior trophy, of sorts, remains the 2013 Community Shield victory against Wigan Athletic, which was his debut for United’s first team as an 83rd-minute substitute. And there will always be regrets when the expectations were once so high.
Januzaj has been described to The Athletic as the classic example of a player who was given too much too young. Internally, the story goes that Januzaj’s advisers had provisionally agreed the financial terms of a contract before returning to United to cite the money on offer from PSG and ask for some new, mind-boggling sums. Ed Woodward, who had just started in his new role as executive vice-chairman, is said to have signed it off, regardless. And maybe it is not a coincidence that from that point onwards, there were only 11 occasions when the boy who shared his birthday with Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar played a full Premier League match for the club.
When The Athletic started speaking to people about Januzaj’s career trajectory it was clear that we had to begin with Louis van Gaal. Was this just another story of a super-talented kid who did not have the wit or gumption to make the most of his ability? Or was there more to it and, as Januzaj’s sympathisers say, were there mitigating factors that not enough people knew about?
It was on Van Gaal’s watch, after all, that Januzaj fell out of favour and it started to become clear that maybe we would never see all that potential flower fully.
Every time Januzaj is interviewed and asked to explain why it did not work out for him in the way that Ferguson and many others had expected, he always cites Van Gaal as the main factor.
Is that fair? The Athletic emailed Van Gaal to see if he was willing to be interviewed. His response came back within 24 hours.
I have absolutely no need to defend myself against so much injustice!
The self-image of players leaves the wishes!
And my career as a coach/manager shows just how many young players could take their chances under my leadership!
With a kind box,
LvG
Van Gaal is entitled to defend his record bearing in mind he brought through Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Thomas Muller, among others, during a long managerial career taking in Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
Yet it also indisputable that Van Gaal slowed down the tactics at Old Trafford and implemented a playing style that worked against several players — Januzaj being one, Angel Di Maria another — who wanted to bring individualism and spontaneity to the team.
(Photo: Marc Atkins/Mark Leech/Getty Images)
Van Gaal did not trust players who took risks and relied more on individual skill than fitting into a methodical system. Therefore, he was no fan of Januzaj.
Jose Mourinho, the next manager in line, did not like what he saw, either. Neither Van Gaal nor Mourinho was willing to accept, as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer does now with Bruno Fernandes, that the good can outweigh the bad when it comes to players who risk losing the ball by trying something adventurous. And it didn’t help that when Borussia Dortmund signed Januzaj on loan in 2015, they ended up sending him back four months early. Januzaj, it was said, had lost his focus. He was described as becoming too fond of the perks of being a star footballer. This does not entirely add up when another former colleague recalls one occasion when Januzaj was unable to ring a foreign number on his phone because his father, Abedin, had not put enough on the sim card.
Abedin had a considerable influence over his son’s business affairs and, as United and others found out, he was not always an easy man to deal with. Marouane Fellaini became a close confidante to the player and, over time, Januzaj’s room-mate with the Belgium team. “Normally when a player is good-looking and cocky, older pros hate that and smash them up in training,” one source says. “But for Belgium, everyone was calling him ‘mon frere’ and ‘little bro’. The senior Belgium players loved him. Romelu Lukaku, Fellaini, top players put their arms around him.”
But perhaps Januzaj was a victim of timing, too. His only first-team involvement with Ferguson came as an unused substitute in the final game of the manager’s 26-year reign. Moyes lasted only 10 months and, after that, Januzaj quickly found out that United, as Ferguson used to say, was a bus that waited for nobody.
He was young, a bit immature, unaccustomed to fame and embarrassed by a newspaper kiss-and-tell involving a girl who did not seem overly impressed to be taken on a date to Nando’s by a footballer wearing tracksuit bottoms. Nando’s responded by offering Januzaj a £50 voucher for his next visit.
“I liked him,” says Rene Meulensteen, another of United’s former coaches. “He was a good player — skilful, intelligent. But it needs a certain position. He is one of those where you think, ‘Where is his best position?’ Is it from the left coming in? Is it a No 10? He is definitely creative enough.
“You could see why United wanted to bring him to the club. But it’s difficult for any player to break through and then stay on top. He did play quite a bit for Moyes. Under Van Gaal, he faded away. Ferguson thought a lot of him, otherwise he wouldn’t have bought him to the club and got him involved in the first team. But lots of players, for whatever reason, fade away and get their luck somewhere else.”
(Photo: VI Images via Getty Images)
This was also a time, in Joyce’s words, when United had “lost a little bit of control of the loan system”.
Januzaj went to Sunderland on loan for the 2016-17 season, Mourinho’s first year at Old Trafford, to be reunited with Moyes. That, however, turned out to be the nadir of his career. Januzaj’s form deserted him. Sunderland were relegated and the supporters turned on a player who, in happier times, had produced one of his more dazzling United performances, featuring two brilliantly taken goals, at the Stadium of Light.
Joyce says it was a mistake on United’s part and points out that Wilson also suffered from going out on various loans. “The manager (Ferguson) used to entrust a lot of that to me, picking the right club, picking the right manager, picking the right environment,” Joyce says. “Januzaj and Wilson, they were more about recovering the wages. They were put on loan when they weren’t fit. And you knew they were going to fail.
“The loans got money returns back but they didn’t develop the players how they should have been. It is not all their fault, because they were good players. Januzaj was as skilful a player as I’ve ever seen. So it is sad to see that they didn’t hit the heights that they should have done. Maybe they didn’t have as much help as they could have done. Everybody criticised the players but they could have had better help.”
That is an interesting take when the common assumption about Januzaj is that a lot of his problems have been self-inflicted since the days when some recall the huge sums of money — the figures looked like “telephone numbers” — that were discussed during negotiations for personal sponsorship deals.
Januzaj had been at Nike previously. Adidas showed interest but it was New Balance that eventually got him despite an attempt to bump up the price at the final moment. Januzaj, who would later complain that he did not feel too comfortable in his new boots, never lived up to the hype, however.
(Photo: Berengui/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Meulensteen makes the point that Januzaj still has the potential to trouble United now he is preparing to line up against them, complete with a new bleached hairdo, for the San Sebastian club that signed him in 2017 for £9.8 million. It has been a long time, though, since we first heard about Januzaj’s potential. And these are the moments when an old quote comes to mind from Ferguson, recalling Peter Barnes’ time at Old Trafford in the late-1980s, that feels apt in the case of Januzaj, too.
“I kept hearing about the potential of this guy (Barnes) when I first came to United,” Ferguson explained. “Everyone was telling me he had such great potential. But he was 30 years old. It’s made me dislike the word. ‘Potential’ — that’s a dangerous word in football.”
They were in Hong Kong, preparing for their first season after Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement, and each morning a member of staff would update this board with training times and all the other details about when they were eating, the arrangements for community events and everything else that went into a pre-season tour.
Yet on that particular day, somebody had rubbed out the correct arrangements and inserted a concoction of bogus times. Appointments were missed. People went missing. All the meticulous organisation to plan the day was jeopardised by a practical joke.
The story has never been told before and, according to well-placed sources, the finger of suspicion was pointed at Alexander Buttner, the reserve left-back.
Buttner had signed from Vitesse the previous year and, behind the scenes, had a side to him that some members of staff did not like. But the suspicion was also that he had been aided and abetted by Adnan Januzaj, the player tipped to be the next star of the team.
Buttner, Januzaj and Rio Ferdinand at the pre-season camp in 2013 (Photo: John Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)
It was David Moyes’ getting-to-know-you period and his staff had misgivings about the way Januzaj, then 18, had teamed up with a player who was six years older and not always seen as a positive influence. OK, it was only a practical joke, but it was not the sort of prank that would have happened if Ferguson was in charge. And it was decided somebody ought to have a quiet word with Januzaj to advise him to think carefully about what was expected of a United player.
Did the message get through? It doesn’t appear so, according to some of the people who were involved at the time. Januzaj, one says, thought he knew better. “But he was young. To be fair, he was very young.”
There is a lovely passage in Ferguson’s autobiography about the first time he saw the schoolboy Ryan Giggs running with the ball at his feet on United’s training pitches.
It was one of those rare and priceless moments, Ferguson wrote, that made all the sweat and frustration and misery of management worthwhile.
“A gold miner who has searched every part of the river or mountain and then suddenly finds himself staring at a nugget could not feel more exhilaration than I did watching Giggs that day. I shall always remember my first sight of him, floating over the pitch at the Cliff so effortlessly that you would have sworn his feet weren’t touching the ground.”
Januzaj was another nugget. He had signed from Anderlecht’s youth system, aged 16, after growing up in Brussels as the son of Kosovar-Albanian parents. He carried his head high and had a natural grace, beautifully balanced, when he took on opponents. He was, in Ferguson’s eyes, an ideal wearer of United’s colours.
“There has been Federico Macheda, James Wilson and a few others who people have gone mad about for a brief moment in time,” recalls one former colleague. “But Januzaj felt different. Everyone believed he’d be another Giggs. He was poster-boy material, how he played, how he looked. He had charisma. He was a fun, charming kid. Some people thought he looked flashy on the pitch and because he had a slightly ‘Eurotrash’ fashion sense, but he was lovely.”
Eric Steele was United’s goalkeeping coach at the time and saw, close up, the work put in by reserve-team manager Warren Joyce to prepare Januzaj for the Premier League.
“I remember when Januzaj first came in, he was a talent,” Steele says. “I’d heard a lot about him. He had an arrogance and a swagger, which I think a lot of people in the club liked. But he had to get fit.
“Warren said he had to toughen up, get fitter, get stronger. He was really tough on him initially. I remember in one game Warren actually put him up front. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘Steeley, he’s got to learn. I am going to be very interested to see how he takes it. Because you know what will happen, centre-halves will kick him. It will be physical for him’.
“You were getting him well prepared to go in with the first team. All of a sudden, you had the likes of Paul Scholes and Darren Fletcher and if you didn’t stand up, you would soon realise, ‘Wow’. That’s what Januzaj found when he first went in, ‘Wow’.”
Scholes, in particular, had a habit of introducing himself to newcomers with some of his more industrial challenges. “Januzaj came off at the end of that game and, I tell you what, he never shirked a tackle,” Steele says. “He got involved, he had a really good game as a No 9.”
Januzaj lifts the Barclays Under-21 Elite Group trophy in 2013 (Photo: Matthew Peters/Manchester United via Getty Images)
Januzaj was, in the words of another United official, the “future of the club” — rated so highly that Ferguson broke one of his own managerial rules to mention the teenager, completely out of the blue, in a press conference just a few weeks before announcing his retirement. Watch out, Ferguson said, for “the Belgian boy” and then he leant back in his chair, nodding to the sound of his own words. Januzaj, he predicted, was going to be some player.
What has happened since serves as a reminder, perhaps, why Ferguson was usually reluctant to talk up young players too much.
Januzaj made such a spectacular entrance Moyes felt compelled to acclaim him as the best player of that age he had seen since Wayne Rooney. United’s executives recall their joy when Januzaj committed himself to a five-year contract one Friday evening at the Lowry hotel, the team’s regular pre-match meeting point. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain had all been trying to prise Januzaj away. The Football Association was exploring whether he could play for England. Moyes described him, in private, as “the young Cruyff” — and he didn’t mean Jordi.
As it is, Januzaj is preparing to take on his former club in the Europa League with a Real Sociedad side that has finished 12th, ninth and sixth in his three previous seasons in Spain. This season, they are fifth. Januzaj, now 26, has been to two World Cups with Belgium, which indicates he must have done something right. Closer inspection, however, shows he has been restricted to 12 caps, eight as a substitute, and has never managed a 90-minute appearance for his country. His only senior trophy, of sorts, remains the 2013 Community Shield victory against Wigan Athletic, which was his debut for United’s first team as an 83rd-minute substitute. And there will always be regrets when the expectations were once so high.
Januzaj has been described to The Athletic as the classic example of a player who was given too much too young. Internally, the story goes that Januzaj’s advisers had provisionally agreed the financial terms of a contract before returning to United to cite the money on offer from PSG and ask for some new, mind-boggling sums. Ed Woodward, who had just started in his new role as executive vice-chairman, is said to have signed it off, regardless. And maybe it is not a coincidence that from that point onwards, there were only 11 occasions when the boy who shared his birthday with Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar played a full Premier League match for the club.
When The Athletic started speaking to people about Januzaj’s career trajectory it was clear that we had to begin with Louis van Gaal. Was this just another story of a super-talented kid who did not have the wit or gumption to make the most of his ability? Or was there more to it and, as Januzaj’s sympathisers say, were there mitigating factors that not enough people knew about?
It was on Van Gaal’s watch, after all, that Januzaj fell out of favour and it started to become clear that maybe we would never see all that potential flower fully.
Every time Januzaj is interviewed and asked to explain why it did not work out for him in the way that Ferguson and many others had expected, he always cites Van Gaal as the main factor.
Is that fair? The Athletic emailed Van Gaal to see if he was willing to be interviewed. His response came back within 24 hours.
I have absolutely no need to defend myself against so much injustice!
The self-image of players leaves the wishes!
And my career as a coach/manager shows just how many young players could take their chances under my leadership!
With a kind box,
LvG
Van Gaal is entitled to defend his record bearing in mind he brought through Clarence Seedorf, Patrick Kluivert, Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Thomas Muller, among others, during a long managerial career taking in Ajax, Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
Yet it also indisputable that Van Gaal slowed down the tactics at Old Trafford and implemented a playing style that worked against several players — Januzaj being one, Angel Di Maria another — who wanted to bring individualism and spontaneity to the team.
(Photo: Marc Atkins/Mark Leech/Getty Images)
Van Gaal did not trust players who took risks and relied more on individual skill than fitting into a methodical system. Therefore, he was no fan of Januzaj.
Jose Mourinho, the next manager in line, did not like what he saw, either. Neither Van Gaal nor Mourinho was willing to accept, as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer does now with Bruno Fernandes, that the good can outweigh the bad when it comes to players who risk losing the ball by trying something adventurous. And it didn’t help that when Borussia Dortmund signed Januzaj on loan in 2015, they ended up sending him back four months early. Januzaj, it was said, had lost his focus. He was described as becoming too fond of the perks of being a star footballer. This does not entirely add up when another former colleague recalls one occasion when Januzaj was unable to ring a foreign number on his phone because his father, Abedin, had not put enough on the sim card.
Abedin had a considerable influence over his son’s business affairs and, as United and others found out, he was not always an easy man to deal with. Marouane Fellaini became a close confidante to the player and, over time, Januzaj’s room-mate with the Belgium team. “Normally when a player is good-looking and cocky, older pros hate that and smash them up in training,” one source says. “But for Belgium, everyone was calling him ‘mon frere’ and ‘little bro’. The senior Belgium players loved him. Romelu Lukaku, Fellaini, top players put their arms around him.”
But perhaps Januzaj was a victim of timing, too. His only first-team involvement with Ferguson came as an unused substitute in the final game of the manager’s 26-year reign. Moyes lasted only 10 months and, after that, Januzaj quickly found out that United, as Ferguson used to say, was a bus that waited for nobody.
He was young, a bit immature, unaccustomed to fame and embarrassed by a newspaper kiss-and-tell involving a girl who did not seem overly impressed to be taken on a date to Nando’s by a footballer wearing tracksuit bottoms. Nando’s responded by offering Januzaj a £50 voucher for his next visit.
“I liked him,” says Rene Meulensteen, another of United’s former coaches. “He was a good player — skilful, intelligent. But it needs a certain position. He is one of those where you think, ‘Where is his best position?’ Is it from the left coming in? Is it a No 10? He is definitely creative enough.
“You could see why United wanted to bring him to the club. But it’s difficult for any player to break through and then stay on top. He did play quite a bit for Moyes. Under Van Gaal, he faded away. Ferguson thought a lot of him, otherwise he wouldn’t have bought him to the club and got him involved in the first team. But lots of players, for whatever reason, fade away and get their luck somewhere else.”
(Photo: VI Images via Getty Images)
This was also a time, in Joyce’s words, when United had “lost a little bit of control of the loan system”.
Januzaj went to Sunderland on loan for the 2016-17 season, Mourinho’s first year at Old Trafford, to be reunited with Moyes. That, however, turned out to be the nadir of his career. Januzaj’s form deserted him. Sunderland were relegated and the supporters turned on a player who, in happier times, had produced one of his more dazzling United performances, featuring two brilliantly taken goals, at the Stadium of Light.
Joyce says it was a mistake on United’s part and points out that Wilson also suffered from going out on various loans. “The manager (Ferguson) used to entrust a lot of that to me, picking the right club, picking the right manager, picking the right environment,” Joyce says. “Januzaj and Wilson, they were more about recovering the wages. They were put on loan when they weren’t fit. And you knew they were going to fail.
“The loans got money returns back but they didn’t develop the players how they should have been. It is not all their fault, because they were good players. Januzaj was as skilful a player as I’ve ever seen. So it is sad to see that they didn’t hit the heights that they should have done. Maybe they didn’t have as much help as they could have done. Everybody criticised the players but they could have had better help.”
That is an interesting take when the common assumption about Januzaj is that a lot of his problems have been self-inflicted since the days when some recall the huge sums of money — the figures looked like “telephone numbers” — that were discussed during negotiations for personal sponsorship deals.
Januzaj had been at Nike previously. Adidas showed interest but it was New Balance that eventually got him despite an attempt to bump up the price at the final moment. Januzaj, who would later complain that he did not feel too comfortable in his new boots, never lived up to the hype, however.
(Photo: Berengui/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
Meulensteen makes the point that Januzaj still has the potential to trouble United now he is preparing to line up against them, complete with a new bleached hairdo, for the San Sebastian club that signed him in 2017 for £9.8 million. It has been a long time, though, since we first heard about Januzaj’s potential. And these are the moments when an old quote comes to mind from Ferguson, recalling Peter Barnes’ time at Old Trafford in the late-1980s, that feels apt in the case of Januzaj, too.
“I kept hearing about the potential of this guy (Barnes) when I first came to United,” Ferguson explained. “Everyone was telling me he had such great potential. But he was 30 years old. It’s made me dislike the word. ‘Potential’ — that’s a dangerous word in football.”
Feel like you're rewriting history a bit here. During his breakthrough season both fans and media were very much talking about him as the next big thing. The club also rated him very highly. Always thought it was an attitude problem that meant he never made it, so I'm looking forward to reading the article.
Many here considered him better than Ronaldo at the same age (18) and he was also compared to a young Giggs. Maybe your memory needs jogging because this statement is far from the truth.
Maybe for a couple months when he was the only spark in that team, but he never really showed enough here and for most the hype quickly died down. Just like a lot of our young players - we’ve had so many that were supposedly the next big thing in their position. Januzaj was no different
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Such a shame with him. He looked absolutely fantastic that season, especially at the start, but as it went on i felt he was turning too much into a player trying to outpace defenders or be a direct winger, rather than be the floating/roaming #10 when he first broke through. Think it was a cup game against Norwich that he absolutely bossed as a #10, but then kept playing more and more on the wing and just becoming more "ordinary".
That's why no matter how good Greenwood or Diallo look, it's vital to develop them properly. Use them properly. Stop with this nonsense of having Greenwood play as a deeper winger ... its so far away from his natural position and where he thrives.
Edit: Watched a highlight video of his 13/14 season and it said it all. He started off playing with so much more technique, intelligence, composure before progressing into a kick and run merchant even though his top pace was never his strength. So strange and such a shame that such a technically brilliant young player, who could dribble tightly, had excellent vision and the ability to play the passes, was then molded basically into a player who tried to play with pace/power/directness. That's what ruined him.
That's why no matter how good Greenwood or Diallo look, it's vital to develop them properly. Use them properly. Stop with this nonsense of having Greenwood play as a deeper winger ... its so far away from his natural position and where he thrives.
Edit: Watched a highlight video of his 13/14 season and it said it all. He started off playing with so much more technique, intelligence, composure before progressing into a kick and run merchant even though his top pace was never his strength. So strange and such a shame that such a technically brilliant young player, who could dribble tightly, had excellent vision and the ability to play the passes, was then molded basically into a player who tried to play with pace/power/directness. That's what ruined him.
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Again the article seems to gloss over his own failings and lay blame at clubs and managers...
That's a good take and what would be my general assessment too. To be fair to him, we were absoloutely tumescent under both Moyes and LVG. Even now we're still talking about being awfully coached and how we rely on individual brilliance.
Moyes rode Januzaj's into the ground and LVG just completely deserted it by relying on 'my Captain shall always play'.
Always liked him personally and thought there was a really good player in there. It doesn’t always work out of course.
Agreed. Seems a case of naturally gifted but never put in enough work and so never achieved what he might have. Had what, one good season?
Seems like a number of factors and people, likely including himself, contributed to his downfall.
That praise from Fergie is something else. Wonder what could have been if Fergie had remained manager. Could've been a very different story.
That praise from Fergie is something else. Wonder what could have been if Fergie had remained manager. Could've been a very different story.
He should still be here. Van Gaal's transfer strategy was a disgrace. He discarded so many players that would have served us better than the dross he brought in as replacements.
Many things would have been a very different story.
100% - I mean you do not hear often someone like Tuchel criticizing a player that openly.
Personally I never saw the player that some United fans were seeing. Yes, some nice skills, but also a lot of work in front of him.
People say that Januzaj had some work rate problems or some mentality type weakness.
Just a question -
Martial has arguably some of the problems above but has still been a useful player in his 5 years here; even if it's only in patches and not at all this season.
Would Januzaj been still be useful here if he did struggle at times?
He was literally our only RW wasnt he?
Arguably we never replaced him.
Just a question -
Martial has arguably some of the problems above but has still been a useful player in his 5 years here; even if it's only in patches and not at all this season.
Would Januzaj been still be useful here if he did struggle at times?
He was literally our only RW wasnt he?
Arguably we never replaced him.
I thought a problem was that he wasn’t quick enough as a winger and the number 10 role was slowly diminishing. I think his debut season is vastly overrated. He was average as the rest of the squad but got a lot of leeway, rightly perhaps because he was a kid still
Read it yesterday, and it does not reflect well on him at all. Taking advantage of the new manager and playing stupid pranks like that before even making his first team debut. Poor attitude. Then blaming LvG for his failure despite never pulling his weight in training. I was thrilled after that Sunderland game and enthralled that he was our 2nd best player that season behind DDG, but no wonder he didn’t succeed here. He definitely had the talent.
The ceiling that Martial is promising at times is on a totally different level than Januzaj. I also think speed is a nice asset on the wing position that Januzaj did not really have.
No yeah I remember all that - and it was probably a good comparison. Ronaldo came in quite raw and naive. The difference is that he became one of the top 10 in the world within a season and a half. Januzaj’s talent was clearly there too and perhaps people saw him as good as Ronaldo at 18, but in contrast he quickly faded away and showed he’s not half the player.
How players are at 18 is never really a great indicator except for the freaks like Messi or Mbappe. If it was we’d also have an article about Macheda and Harry Kane would’ve been sold to Peterborough.
Or Ronaldo Nazario or Rooney or Owen. Them 5 were all electric at 18, which is frightening.
It's not really comparing Martial to Januzaj.
It's more the fact that we havent had a RW in 10 years and right at the start of that was Januzaj in our own first team.
I'm not saying he is world class or anything but I'm wondering if having Januzaj in our squad was better than not having anyone at all.
During the Moyes/Giggs season, Adnan got 4 goals + 4 assists in 1640 PL mins. All his goals and assists in the PL that season came when playing left-wing (according to Transfermarkt, my memory isn't good enough to recall every goal + assist). He had some good performances as a right-winger but the chances he created in those games weren't converted. https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/adnan-januzaj/leistungsdatendetails/spieler/177847/wettbewerb/GB1
Under LVG the only PL goal he scored was against Villa when playing as a no 10. 992 PL mins for 1 goal + 0 assists.
His loans at Dortmund and Sunderland were spectacular failures, while his time at Real Sociedad has been merely ok. 50 La Liga starts, 36 sub, 14 unused sub, 10 goals and 13 assists.
At Sunderland he managed 0 goals + 3 assists in 1632 PL mins, yet none of his assists came when playing right wing either.
For Belgium 489 mins 1 goal + 0 assists (mostly as a no 10).
I thought he would develop into an amazing player but it hasn't happened so far.
So to answer your question, there is no evidence to suggest that Adnan would have been an improvement on Mata, Lingard, Dan James etc on the right. One aspect that is clear from Understat, that wasn't apparent when Adnan first broke into the United team, is just how poor his shooting has been over the medium to longer term. For the seasons they have data, his total expected goals is 19.44, yet he actually managed to score 11. https://understat.com/player/323
Having said that, his scouting report on Fbref, looks a lot better than I expected: https://fbref.com/en/players/4737cebe/Adnan-Januzaj - it would appear he is good at progressing the play, either through dribbling or passing, but ordinary at final ball. They only have data for the last 365 days so a smaller sample size.
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Good read there in the middle from @Nani Nana. No thanks to OP, the rotten scoundrel!
My opinion of Januzaj isn't interesting - he was simply a talented youth product who didn't live up to the hype. He never had any standout games for us, aside from scoring 2 at Sunderland. He never looked great for Belgium either when I watch him play. Even at Sociedad now he hasn't lit the world on fire and there's far less pressure in Basque Country than there was in Manchester.
I'm sure many youth products are talented and it often appears that many play on adrenaline in those early games. We had Welbeck score a 30 yarder on his debut. We had Tuanzebe keep Mbappe in his pocket earlier this year. Heck, we had Cameron Borthwick Jackson turn into Cafu for a few games.
Consistency really is key and that's (arguably) what separates a good footballer from a great talent.
My opinion of Januzaj isn't interesting - he was simply a talented youth product who didn't live up to the hype. He never had any standout games for us, aside from scoring 2 at Sunderland. He never looked great for Belgium either when I watch him play. Even at Sociedad now he hasn't lit the world on fire and there's far less pressure in Basque Country than there was in Manchester.
I'm sure many youth products are talented and it often appears that many play on adrenaline in those early games. We had Welbeck score a 30 yarder on his debut. We had Tuanzebe keep Mbappe in his pocket earlier this year. Heck, we had Cameron Borthwick Jackson turn into Cafu for a few games.
Consistency really is key and that's (arguably) what separates a good footballer from a great talent.
What a waste of a talent and a great chant 
I thought he looked absolutely fantastic against Norwich in the League Cup, very impressive against Hull under Giggs and Chelsea away while Moyes was still manager.
I also remember him as a Cruyff-like player at first, varied and really exciting to watch, and as the season drew out, he was more about hitting it past the full back to cross or shoot.
I do think he was kind of unlucky with the style of the managers he played under, and that he could have had a better carreer path with some luck in that regard.
On the other hand, he has been accessible to such varied managers as Moyes (twice), Van Gaal, Mourinho, Tuchel, Sacristan, Alguacil, Wilmots and Martinez, and if each of these has their shortcomings, I think it’s fair to say that if you did not tip the ground up under any of them, and the one you played best under is accused of ‘destroying’ you, it’s fair to say you never had it in you to become a new Johan Cruyff, in fact, Jordi would be a more natural milestone.
Now, Jordi had a very respectable carreer as a footballer, and so has Adnan had and will have. Still, looking at what he could have been at 18 and what he has made of it, I think it’s clear that his technical talent far outstripped his talent in regards to mentality and attitude.