There are hardly any players in the game today who are capable of repeatedly fending off the advances of a player as powerful and committed as Anderson. The explosive pace and acceleration that Anderson is able to inject on the football pitch is another area where the Brazilian scores highly.
A key component to Anderson’s game is his ability to charge through the pitch, using his speed to escape from the battleground that is the central midfield area of Premiership matches. This ability was exhibited constantly against Arsenal, where his excellent ball control and dribbling skills in tight spaces allowed him to move away from Gilberto Silva and Fabregas.
Another area where Anderson can also be seen to excel is in the range of his passing, with the Brazilian capable of spreading passes over long distances with both incredible accuracy and vision. He's more than capable of passing at the speed and accuracy required of central midfielders over short distances.
If Anderson is to be considered a truly superior player to the rest of his counterparts then he must begin to add the kind of final product to his game that you have seen the likes of Fabregas, Gerrard, Lampard have been able to show repeatedly so far this year, as it is in these areas where the true value of a player is determined. However, it is important at this time to think of that his stats provides an excellent barometer of achievement but there's still room for a huge improvement. Mind you, he's ony 19 years old currently.
After all, midfielders like Gerrard, Fabregas & Lampard themselves were once castigated for failing to net. Indeed, it took Fabregas until the closing games of last season to score a Premiership goal in that particular campaign. What a difference a year makes. This is certainly an area where we, fans of Anderson and Manchester United can take great heart, and point to potential achievements of the future.
As such, it remains an incredibly hard task to judge how good Anderson actually is, with the only certainty being that the fans of United should be eternally grateful that our team can boast two of the most exciting talents in world football today, including Nani. Last but not least, he'll score today!
