My Favorite Manchester United Player of the Modern Era
Nowadays, I have a “country over club” mentality as a soccer fan. If Christian Pulisic or Josh Sargent or any future American in the English Premier League were to score a hat trick against Manchester United, I would be absolutely ecstatic. The rise in American talent in the past few years has made me proud to be an American soccer fan — so proud, in fact, that I no longer call association football by its foreign name, “football,” but by its American name, soccer.
There was a time, however, that I didn’t feel this way. As some of you may know, I was a Manchester United fan before I was a USMNT fan, and this club — first mentality really wouldn’t disappear until the 2019–2020 season. It was this season when Christian Pulisic debuted in the English Premier League and was by far Chelsea’s best attacker during the “Project Restart” phase of the season. It was also the season where Giovanni Reyna burst out in the scene and began to feature for Borussia Dortmund’s senior team.
But recently, I’ve come to realize that I’ve not only become more invested in the USMNT’s players, but that I’ve also become less invested in Manchester United’s players. I guess having to watch mediocre players like midfield duo of Scott McTominay and Fred play week-in-and-week-out did that to me.
Whenever I watch McFred, I sometimes question what team they play for. Whether it is their lack of creativity, lack of composure in tight spaces, or overreliance on hard work and hustle to get things done, it is plain obvious that they just aren’t Manchester United midfield quality. I could say the same for someone like Harry Maguire, but I digress.
But that got me thinking — has there ever been a Man U player who I didn’t have anything to complain about?
Enter Ander Herrera. The Spanish midfielder moved to Manchester United in the summer of 2014 for a fee of 36 million euros, and he notched 6 goals and 4 assists in his debut season for the club. Those aren’t eye — catching numbers by any means, but they’re not bad, either. For perspective, Bernardo Silva, one of Manchester City’s most important offensive midfielders, has produced similar levels of production in all of his past seasons as a Citizen.
One may notice that Ander Herrera would fail to replicate the same degree of production in his following years as a Red Devil, but much of that was due to the fact that he began to play in a much deeper role in those following years.
But what makes me appreciate Ander Herrera so much nowadays isn’t his goals or assists.
Rather, whenever I watched Ander Herrera play, it was just amazing watching a player who was not only cerebral and technical, but very hardworking. Whether it was his tendency to always put in shifts on the defense or his ability to progress the ball forward both in transition and in possession, you could always be sure that he’d have at worst a decent game. For all the talk nowadays about how some Manchester United players aren’t very hardworking or gritty, there was no denial that Ander Herrera wore his heart on his sleeve while also having the skills necessary to justify his inclusion.
In many ways, Ander Herrera is something of a journeyman; in layman’s terms, this means an athlete who is very competent but not of world class caliber. No Red Devil fan is saying that Ander Herrera was the hidden reincarnation of Andres Iniesta, or that he would the the savior of all of our current problems as a team. But he’d most certainly be better than some of the options we have now, and in his prime, he was one universally rated by most analysts as one of the most underrated players in the Prem.
Moreover, looking back, it becomes increasingly frustrating that we spend so much money every transfer window but we can somehow manage to let a guy like Ander Herrera leave for free. Just let that sink in. We let PSG (insert oil lord memes here) not have to spend a single penny, apart from wages, on a signing. It’s not as if he’s been unused, either. For all of the talent that PSG has, Ander Herrera has still managed to accumulate a decent 56 appearances since the summer of 2019.
The good news? It seems as if the feeling between us fans and him is mutual.
Bring him back, Rangnick.
