2019/24 Shoya Nakajima @ FC Porto (POR)

Nakajima lacked quality in the final third, both his shots and crosses were overhit. Awful way to exit the CL for Porto.

 

Yes

 

You guys keep ignoring Copa America where Nakajima was good in an underdog kids team vs Top Players NT.
Anyway actually he's not good and that's what matters.

 

He was not that good, he tried granted but not even close to what he used to do with his level at Portimonese.

 

I don't know how he played in Portuguese League (I watched only HL), but in Copa America for me he was pretty good against stronger side (for me Chile and Uruguay are top opponents tougher than the majority of portoguese league teams) in an experimental team full of kids (aka worse situation than Portimonense).
You said he was better before his 6 months in Qatar and I'm fine with it, but imo his form in Copa America was enough to perform at least average in Porto.
Instead he's performing bad as the whole team, and being the only one who spent some months in Qatar is not a good excuse.

 

Can’t deny that, Qatar clearly slowed him down. He had a lot of bad moments the other day amongst a few good ones, it was a bit of painful to watch but the blessing might be that he never lost his confidence : he kept blasting desperate shots over the bar until the end ...

 

Bench once again

 

Another match against a clownesque opponent, let's see if they keep failing.

 

4-0, 66th min. Nakajima coming on

 

How was he? I just watched the last minutes where he was bullied 2 times (1 time the referee punish him, another his tackler) and the last counter when he was too hurried and shoot on the defenders in the small box.
Anyway mission accomplished for Mr. Sergio: underdog crushed and keep going on.

 

This will take time I feel.

 

His technical quality really took a step down. First touch, passing accuracy...everything is off.

 

It looks like he's not at the form-level required to secure a spot in the starting 11 even for this Porto. Spending half a season in Qatar surely didn't make him sharper, but that doesn't explain everything. Doing good at Portimonense is not a guarantee to perform equally well at a Porto-tier club. The competition and the responsibilities Nakajima is facing now are far greater now than anything he's ever encountered before. I still think he's up to the task, but it's going to take some time. The problem is that at clubs playing for titles, time is not something that abounds.

 

In that case, it does explain everything. It’s just as Naopon said. Until he’s become himself again, it won’t be interesting talking about his chances in Porto.

 

I watched his games in Qatar and he rarely touched the ball there.

 

Yep, definitely. People here are talking about his spell in Qatar as he was sent to prison for 6 months, tortured and not allowed to touch a ball. Surely they have a lot of issues, but he was playing under a well-respected manager as Rui Faria and in state-of-the-art training facilities. If he deteriorated as a player there it's 100% down to him, and nothing else.

For large parts of that 6-month spell he wasn't even in Qatar. He spent nearly the entire June with the Japan NT, and were also in Japan for almost 2 weeks in March. That he only played 7 league-games during his spell there underlines that, so there's obviously more to this story.

Using Qatar as an excuse is starting to get old, especially considering players from those leagues (Qatar,UAE etc) have easily managed to adapt to a higher league before. Does Manuel Lanzini or El-Arabi rings a bell for anyone?

And he's played, what is it 113 minutes in a Porto-jersey? New teammates, new playing-style, new manager? Aren't people being very quick to draw conclusions here? And having travelled for basically the entire summer back and forth between 3 continents + 1 sub-continent while most of his teammates were already in pre-season training will of course affect him too so why don't we give him a break? Dennis Bergkamp was labelled a flop after 7-8 matches at Arsenal, and look how that turned out.

And as you say, doing well at a tiny club like Portimonense is no guarantee he has what it takes to succeed in a bigger club. Porto failed to reach Champions League this season which is a disaster for a club like them, so it's not only Nakajima who have been disappointing so far.

 

And why is this you think?

 

Nosedive experience till now.
Worst than Miyaichi, worst than Usami, worst than Kagawa to ManU.