Paul Scholes hails Manchester United’s ‘brilliant’ Shinji Kagawa

Paul Scholes has heaped praise on Manchester United’s “brilliant” summer signing Shinji Kagawa.

The 23-year-old completed his transfer in June for an undisclosed fee on a four-year deal following months of speculation linking him with a move to Old Trafford.

Kagawa scored 17 goals in 40 appearances for Dortmund last term as Jürgen Klopp’s side won the Bundesliga title for the second successive year and eased to a 5-2 victory over Bayern Munich in the German Cup final.

The Japan international started his first pre-season game against Ajax Cape Town last week and scored the winner in the Red Devils’ 1-0 victory over Chinese outfit Shanghai Shenhua four days later.

“He looks brilliant. I’ve only been in training with him for a couple of weeks but he’s very good technically and you can see the talent he’s got already,” Scholes told the People.

“He’s had a couple of great years at Dortmund and I think he has been player of the year in Germany – that tells you he’s a top player.

“He will bring goals to the team, whether he’s scoring them or making them. He’s got great movement and is very clever in the runs he makes.

“It’s difficult to say which foot is his best. He’s equal with right and left. He’s a good lad. He doesn’t speak much English yet, but I am sure he will be very popular here.”

Meanwhile, the 37-year-old admitted Manchester City were deserved winners of the Premier League crown last season, but Scholes believes United will be even more motivated after missing out on a 20th title on the final day of the season.

“You always say the best team wins the league and City were the best team last year,” added Scholes.

“The football they played for the most of the season was fantastic. As much as I don’t want to admit it, they were good to watch and probably played the best football.

“So from that aspect, they were the best team and deserved to win it. They have raised the bar and it’s up to us to now kick on and do even better than they did.

“It’s always a motivating factor when you lose the league and perhaps we will be motivated even more after what happened.

“It isn’t nice when you see another team winning the title on the last day of the season. You have that picture in your head of them celebrating and you don’t want it to happen again.

“I still don’t really understand what happened.

“We should have won the league and we didn’t. In the end, we failed. To be in the position we were – eight points clear with six games to go – well, it’s not like us.”

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