When Cristiano Ronaldo came to United in 2004, he was by no means a polished article. He was an extremely talented youngster, no doubt about that. But most of the times his decision-making was horrible and his tricks and skills were never exhibited at the opportune moment. His trickery was more about showboating than about effectiveness. But under the stewardship of Sir Alex, he grew into a phenomenal player scoring 42 and 26 goals in the last two seasons. This, considering he was a wide player in essence, is an astounding fact. We got six unbelievable years out of him and then sold him at a profit of £68 million; I don’t think any club has ever reaped such fruits from any particular player, especially from one who had always nurtured another club in his dreams. Now that he is gone, he will be sorely missed. But in football, things never stall over one player. We have a new talent on our hands, one which has an unenviable task of replacing The World’s Best Talent. But the 80-million dollar question is: Is Antonio Valencia good enough?
From what I have seen of Valencia so far, he seems a very promising prospect. He has a good physique, a criterion which needs to be satisfied at all costs if one is to succeed as a footballer in the Premier League. In fact, here Valencia has an edge over Ronaldo in the sense that Ronaldo needed some time to bulk up whereas Valencia is already there. Of course, Ronaldo was younger at the time he joined United than what Valencia is now. But then Valencia is more mature in his play. He is a very direct sort of a player who likes running at defenders. He has the pace to give almost all wing-backs problems. He has the potential to swing in mean crosses almost consistently, something that we have not had since Beckham left. The only department where he needs to really buck up is the goal-scoring department. In all his appearances at Wigan, he scored only goals. This combined with the international goals he has scored for Ecuador point to a poor scoring record. And taking into account the goal-scoring exploits of his illustrious predecessor, there is scope for major improvement. But then if there ever was a place where he could improve, it would have to be Old Trafford with Sir Alex watching his every move. His defensive qualities are much better than Ronaldo which would reduce the pressure on our wing-backs. Also, his tracking back would allow players like Carrick and Fletcherinho to get a little forward thus improving our attacking options.
Now now, we shouldn’t be getting over-expectant now do we? The worst thing that we as fans can do is to put the weight of expectation on his shoulders by constantly trying to compare him to Ronaldo. We will have to make peace with the fact that we might not see a talent in the same league as Ronaldo for quite some time. But at the same time, we must not see Valencia as a poor replacement for the WFOTY. He is a gifted footballer in his own right. He brings a different dimension to our game which might not be as eye-grabbing as Ronaldo’s but which might still be equally effective. All he needs is a little encouragement from us coupled with SAF’s magic touch. There’s a chance that 2-3 years down the line, we might see an infinitely improved Valencia. And then you can bet on your life that the Los Blancos will come calling.
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