“He’s had a tough year” said Carlo Ancelotti of Javier Hernandez after he scored the winner in Real Madrid’s quarter final victory over Atletico Madrid in the Champions League. “He’s not played much.”
Well quite. His Champions League outing against Atleti aside, Chicharito has been afforded just 422 minutes of La Liga playing time this season, notching up a full 90 minutes in the league on just two occasions, scoring both times.
It’s understandable enough to see why he’s struggled for minutes at Madrid: he’s behind an attacking triumvirate that cost more than $300 million to assemble and that has scored 67 La Liga goals this season collectively.
However, why Louis van Gaal let Chicharito depart Old Trafford at the start of the season and, worse still, has given no indication of welcoming him back at the beginning of next, is another question entirely.
In his 422 minutes of La Liga football, Chicharito has scored four goals: a ratio of one every 105 minutes played. Now consider the return achieved by some of United’s leading lights in the Premier League this season:
Wayne Rooney: 12 goals at 213 minutes per goal
Robin van Persie: 10 goals at 199 minutes per goal
Radamel Falcao: 4 goals at 282 minutes per goal
Angel di Maria: 3 goals at 523 minutes per goal
Hardly stellar. Now let’s look at some of the transfer targets United have been credited with an interest in:
Carlos Bacca: 17 goals at 138 minutes per goal
Mauro Icardi: 16 goals at 142 minutes per goal
Robert Lewandowski: 16 goals at 135 minutes per goal
Edinson Cavani: 9 goals at 232 minutes per goal
Danny Ings: 9 goals at 288 minutes per goal
We know goal-scoring isn’t the be-all-and-end-all, even for strikers, but come on. Maybe what Louis van Gaal needs is someone to show it to him visually. So, just in case, here you go. The one, irrefutable reason that van Gaal needs to bring Javier Hernandez back to Manchester United – he is outscoring Man United's stars, as well as likely transfer targets:
In short, Chicharito has proven throughout his career that if you give him the minutes he’ll score you goals. In his first season for United, he scored 13 league goals at a rate of one per 114 minutes. In 2011-12 he scored 10 at a rate of one per 148 minutes. In 2012-13 he scored 10 goals at a rate of one every 95 minutes and last season he scored four at a rate of one per 210 minutes: his worst return by a distance.
So here’s a memo from the brains trust at The18 to Louis van Gaal: stop mucking around with all the fancy-dancy, exotic and uber-expensive transfer nonsense and put Chicharito on the pitch next season instead.
It’s that simple.
