Mata Set To Be Benched Against West Brom But Januzaj Could Start

Active wouldn’t be the right word to describe Adnan Januzaj’s season at Manchster United so far. The 19-year old who was a revelation under axed boss David Moyes has found life on the uneasy side in his second spell at Old trafford owing to his inability to hold down an active role in new Boss Louis Van Gaals new look team. With the arrival of top class signings in Uniteds frontline the odds seem stacked against the youngster as competition for starting places seemed to rise to an all time high in his short career.

There however seems to be a silver lining for the Belgian as his agent Dirk De Vries has hinted he could be in for his first start of the season at the tricky tie against West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns on later tonight.

“I believe Adnan plays well at this moment and I’ve heard that he could start the game on Monday,” his agent said.

With United skipper Wayne Rooney out serving the second of his three match ban for his show of indiscipline against West Ham at old trafford, Adnan might just fancy his chances of a start. With him under pressure from Uniteds dutch boss to prove his worth the price for a place in the starting lineup would have to come in a tug of war against a certain Juan Mata and Ashley Young who are available for selection.

With Ashley Young’s recent performances and Mata’s lacklustre performance against the Toffees coupled with his want for speed I would say Januzaj would be a better replacement to team up with van Persie, Falcao and Di Maria while Mata might be dropped or moved further infield. Training with the U-21s ever since to keep match fitness has raised a lot of questions concerning the reason such young talent should be kept on the bench but the reasons are obvious and not far fetched.

Considering the record breaking debut season of David Moyes (negatively of course), LVG was never given the leisure of running tests or experimenting players, this led to the £150m pounds summer spree which saw the signing of big names who couldn’t just be put on the bench at the expense of a budding, feeble and fairly inconsistent but talented 19 year old.

Defensively Januzaj leaves much to be desired, but that doesn’t come to the fore when in comparism with Juan Mata who has been constantly getting the stick for his defensive abilities especially tracking back to support the defence ( Ashley young is however better in this aspect).

Both Mata and Januzaj are not key players aerially as they rarely win aerial duels. Meanwhile Mata’s ability to hold the ball may seem to give him an edge, but this edge is only momentary as Januzaj brings more pace to the table though both of them seem to burn out physically during games and have been known to struggle towards the 90-minute mark.

Safe to say Januzaj would be bursting with confidence after scoring a recent hat trick against Sunderland and a goal against Spurs for the U-21s. If his recent performance is anything to go by then we should be expecting a good performance from the Belgian as he now knows such chances may not be readily available with the team being presently inundated with bigger names and price tags.

If the words of his agent are anything to go by and he ends up starting against the baggies we wish him good luck and hope he gives a worthy perfomance as his united career might just slightly hinge on it.