Hernandez finding the going tough

LOUISE TAYLORexplains why the Manchester United striker is struggling to repeat last season's heroics

IN A different season, with a different squad, Alex Ferguson would probably have advised Javier Hernandez to take himself off somewhere hot for a winter holiday. Manchester United’s Mexico striker has endured a lukewarm time of late, prompting suggestions that the 23-year-old could be suffering “second season syndrome” or may even have been “found out”.

Rooted in fatigue and physical frailty, the reality is almost certainly rather less dramatic, if no less potentially damaging to United’s title hopes.

After a glorious debut season at Old Trafford in which Hernandez scored 20 goals in 45 appearances as Ferguson’s team won the title and reached the Champions League final last year, the forward known as Chicharito – or Little Pea – headed off to the United States for the Concacaf Gold Cup.

On 25 June at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, he was part of the Mexico side that swept the USA aside in the final. Shortly afterwards Hernandez was named player of the tournament, having finished top scorer with seven goals.

A three-week holiday followed before he flew to New York for United’s pre- season tour. It was the second successive year in which he had lacked an extended summer break: 2010, memorably, saw Hernandez star for his country in the World Cup, where Fifa statistics show he was the tournament’s quickest player, reaching a lung-sapping top speed of 32.15kmh.

If burnout already beckoned, fortune swiftly played a cruel trick in the form of a debilitating blow to the head. In late July last year Hernandez was training in New Jersey when, as he strained to make contact with a strong, swerving cross, the ball struck him painfully on the back of the skull. By evening a severe headache forced him to his hotel bed. Once in his room, Hernandez began being violently sick; shortly afterwards he was admitted to hospital with suspected concussion.

Although scans revealed nothing overly serious, a neurological condition that caused the striker severe migraines as a teenager, and twice floored him after on-pitch clashes of heads in Mexico, dictated that doctors prescribed a complete rest.

Accordingly it was almost a month before he returned to training. By then a close season in which Hernandez did not participate in a single friendly had passed him by. To make matters worse, Hernandez’ autumn was interrupted by, first, another headache-provoking skull injury and then ankle ligament damage.

Although six goals in 22 appearances is not entirely shabby, he no longer petrifies defenders in quite the manner of 2010-’11. The rapidity of acceleration and surprising spring for a man of 5ft 9ins may still be there but these days the off-the-ball running is not quite so inventive, the tendency to fall foul of an offside flag more frequent and, most importantly, the finishing not quite as startlingly incisive.

Hernandez has played the full 90 minutes in the Premier League only four times during the current campaign and is expected to be only on the bench at Arsenal tomorrow. From the outside that looks suspiciously like an evaporation of trust; especially as he has been substituted during seven of his 11 starts.

Demurring, United’s manager acknowledges problems but retains faith in a talent he believes will soon start blossoming again.

“He is looking a lot better now,” says Ferguson. “He’s had his issues this year. He had that concussion, then another head knock, then an ankle knock and he’s not been able to get his season going yet. But he’s looking well now. His training has been fantastic.”

For the moment, though, it is taking Hernandez longer to score – on average he registers a goal once every 148 League minutes these days as opposed to once every 114 minutes a year ago. He is also shooting less, converting fewer of his chances and completing fewer passes.

This does not spell lack of effort. Complacency is one of the last things a refreshingly modest and evidently intelligent character who remains a committed Christian can be accused of.

Some may argue that a possibly subconscious desire to protect his head has marginally reduced the efficacy of a finisher who sometimes struggles to get into matches after stepping off the bench.

Yet Chicharito’s principal problem conceivably lies not so much with himself as with a midfield in which Paul Scholes’s recent return from retirement highlights a lack of high-calibre creativity. Ferguson can only trust that a fully fit Hernandez will begin camouflaging such flaws by imposing his own considerable talents on games. “If I get Hernandez back into the frame of things then what an addition he will be,” said the Scot. “We know the goals he can score.”

Right now it still looks a big “if”.