Javier Hernandez: Can Chicharito Live Up to Debut Season Success in 2011-12?

As you walk round the aisles of the supermarket your eyes are greeted by a multitude of color, delicacies and screaming signage. Yet sometimes, in spite of this gaudy splendor, this miasma of smells and packaging, it is in simplicity that the true value is felt.

Last summer, Sir Alex Ferguson entered the figurative supermarket of his imaginings, resisting the temptation of the profiteroles and raspberry pavlova. He made only one stop on this voyage of rediscovery, halting briefly in the frozen aisle to pick up a packet of peas.

The purchase, in hindsight, is rightly lauded as one of the shrewdest of the Scot’s United stewardship, as the “Little pea,” went on to write his indelible mark on an unsuspecting copybook. Under a shroud anonymity, the little pea thawed the confines of a shell no longer befitting his talent, to form an integral part of United’s back season pod.

Yet, with success inevitably comes expectation. Javier Hernandez began last season an unknown. A 7 million pound capture whom, in the infancy, was essentially on parity with fellow new boy Bebe.

The contrasting paths the two men have traversed to this point lays testament to Hernandez’s meteoric rise to prominence. Whilst Bebe featured in fewer than five first team games and will begin the 2011/2012 campaign at Turkish League side Besiktas, Hernandez’s success is such that after notching over 20 goals in his debut campaign, he now forms an indispensable cog in the United wheel.

Hernandez’s raw, instinctive proclivity leads the live wire Mexican with un-nerving regularity to be in the right place at the right time. Face, back of the head, toe pokes: the man for whom the term “fox in the box” was coined. In and around 18 yards, Javier Hernandez is lethal.

Despite this, some still question the validity of Hernandez’s claim to a starting berth, citing his unrefined style as an obstacle to impede the natural attacking predisposition of much of United’s play.

It would be true, indeed, to claim that Dimitar Berbatov—the most realistic rival to Chicharito’s starting berth—a precociously gifted player, with a seemingly mesmeric control over the ball’s trajectory is a man whose finesse on the ball is more refined than Hernadez’s. Yet football takes all sorts and in some ways, Berbatov’s exemplary ball control is also his downfall, as his natural predilection to slow down the play flies in the face of much of United’s fast counterattacking play.

Indeed with reputed interest from sheik-rich French side Paris Saint Germain, Berbatov’s inclusion on United’s squad come season rise is far from ensured. Unlike Hernadez’s.

The only real question mark hanging over the head of Chicharito on the eve of the curtain raiser to the 2011/12 season, is simply how will he live up to the standard he set in his debut term? After a stunning first 10 months in red, has the young Mexican set himself an unrealistic precedent going forward?

To me, the answer is an emphatic no. Although it is true that Premiership and indeed the world’s defenses have had a year to analyze and better prepare for the coming of the little pea, when faced with such raw unpredictability, preparation can only get you so far.

Could Stoke really have envisaged for a player leaping away from goal to direct a cross into the top corner with the back of his head, whilst facing away from goal?

Hernadez’s is the transfer that launched a thousand rumors. The man plucked from obscurity to lay testament to the brilliance of Sir Alex Ferguson and his extensive scouting networks. The pea pulled from the freezer to become an international superstar.

No, quite simply. Javier Hernandez is here to stay.