Manchester United, Premier League, South America

After a rocky start, Anderson could prove to be the Premier League’s next Cesc Fàbregas after a string of excellent displays.

As a United fan of over 30 years service, I always watch the pre-season with an air of expectancy, in much the same way that an expectant father waits.

This year was a little different. Surely the saga of Owen Hargreaves couldn’t rumble on for much longer, and sure enough, a deal was struck very quickly. He followed the announcement that Nani was joining. Again, this was no major surprise, as this was player who had been linked to the club time and time again through the previous weeks.

However, the other signing announced on the same day as Nani came right out of left-field. Anderson was signing for a reported £18m from Porto. Now I’ll confess, I haven’t really kept up on my Portuguese football, so I needed to do a little research into a man who was obviously named for that United stalwart of the 1980s (no, not Gordon McQueen).

What I read next filled me with a sense of dread. He was Brazilian, and was being likened to Ronaldinho. Surely the Brazilian experiment doesn’t work at Old Trafford. Kleberson joined United as a World-Cup winner, having been declared the “driving force” behind the side by coach, Luis Felipe Scolari. Kleberson became a prime candidate for the “What Happened Next?” feature on “A Question of Sport” as he got injured in his second game for the club and then proceeded to disappear off the face of the earth fairly quickly, managing just 25 games in two seasons at the Theatre of Dreams.

Anderson made his debut for United against Sunderland on 1st September 2007, and looked like he was very quickly going to join Kleberson as a Brazilian flop in Manchester. His reputation wasn’t enhanced by a poor team performance against Coventry City in the Carling Cup, even though Sir Alex Ferguson said that Anderson was one of the best players on the night.

However, fast-forward a month, and Anderson is taking the pitch against Wigan, this time as a substitute for Nemanja Vidic. His performance that day was so-far removed from his debut against Sunderland as to be talking about a different player. His through ball to set up Carlos Tévez for the first goal, and arguably opened the floodgates for United who had previously struggled to find the back of the opponent’s net.

A fortnight later, Anderson made his Champions League debut for United against Dynamo Kiev and turned in a man-of-the-match performance as they won 4-2.

Since then, he has become something of a fixture in the heart of midfield for United, albeit assisted by an injury to Paul Scholes. The mark of quite how far this young man has come in such a short space of time can be demonstrated by the fact that he is getting picked to start games ahead of not only players like Darren Fletcher, but ahead of the likes of Hargreaves and Michael Carrick.

It was perhaps unfair to judge Anderson after only a handful of performances for United. He has certainly turned in Jekyll and Hyde performances so far. Even leaving aside his nightmare against Sunderland, his performances haven’t been consistently dazzling.

His passing is not consistently at the level we have come to expect over recent times, being spoiled by Scholes, and even Carrick. He can produce a piece of brilliance one minute, and then confound you the next minute by giving possession away. He hasn’t scored yet, and the shots that he has had haven’t been laced with the same kind of venom that we saw in the highlight reels when he signed. At a little under 5’10”, he is never going to have an aerial presence either.

All that said, in Anderson, United might have a world-class player in the making. He does get up and down the pitch very comfortably. He has only been with United for a short while and is still learning his way in the Premier League, which is a league far faster than either the Brazilian or the Portuguese versions. He can tackle, which is something that Paul Scholes has never learnt to do, and he isn’t afraid to get stuck in – just ask Cesc Fàbregas.

In fact, Fàbregas is good illustration of what we could have. Here is a player who joined Arsenal as 16-year old and didn’t even feature in his first season, but was thrust into the first team as a result of injuries to key players and established himself as a regular starter. Here was a player who grew up in a more high-profile environment (Barcelona) and who still had to grow into his role.

Now he is (and rightly so) considered one of the best players in the top-flight. Equally though, in the games against Arsenal this season, Anderson has shut Fabregas out of the game, with minimal fuss and ruthless efficiency.

The most enduring thing though, is his passion. Here is a player who wears his heart on his sleeve. When United didn’t turn up for the derby game against City, here was a player who did. He seems to embody the never-say-die attitude that Sir Alex Ferguson has tried to instil in his United teams.

In the FA Cup game against Arsenal, here was a player who was still getting stuck in when the hosts were in charge of the game. If you hadn’t seen the score and the look on his face was the first thing you saw, you could have been forgiven for believing that Arsenal were ahead.

The prospect of Anderson slotting into a midfield with Nani on one wing and Ronaldo on the other while Tévez and Wayne Rooney are ahead of him is an utterly alluring one. Hopefully, it will come to fruition.

Anderson can be the natural successor to Scholes. He needs to be given the time to settle into the club, and into the role. If he is allowed to develop of the coming months and years, we may have another world-class match winner. If he is rushed, we will end up with another Jose Kleberson who is shipped off to Turkey for a fraction of what we paid for him. I know which one I’d prefer.

Tags: Anderson

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