Just a case of second season syndrome perhaps?
I think the problem that we had last season is that it was a huge risk playing two strikers as well as Ronaldo on one wing and Nani on the other and for obvious reason Ronaldo wasn't going to be left out, nor was Rooney and nor was both Berbatov and Tevez so Nani had an up hill battle from day one of last season.
One such game where he did start only to get subbed that sticks out in my memory was the game against Spurs at OT where Nani IMO had a good 45 minutes but found himself the one taken off, again not surprising really as you wouldn't take Ronaldo, Rooney and Berbatov off when you're 2 goals down
People can say what they want about Nani after last season but I saw enough from him in his first season to have the confidence that given a prolonged run in the team he'll flourish next season.
Obviously though next season if make or break without a doubt
What, Nani was absolutely horrible against Spurs, Rooney, Berbs and Ronaldo were linking up VERY well in the first half and should have scored 3-4 between them but created the same types of chances in the first as the second. Nani consistantly gave the ball away and was horrible and was subbed quite rightly along with a crap Anderson and the team didn't change "that" much, just the chances went in and Spurs didn't get more goals as a result of defensive mistakes.
AS for Jakelele saying Ronaldo still doesn't have much of a brain but his feet are what serves him, thats just about the dumbest thing I've seen writen in any thread on these forums. Its NOT his speed, nor his tricks that make him a great player, like Fabregas its his brain. He runs fast, but he runs at the RIGHT TIME to be in space to recieve a killer pass. Likewise he crosses and passes himself to the right places at the right time, he reads the game better than most. Nani's as quick, if not quicker, Theo's quick, yet useless most of the time, speed means nothing, a multitude of players with massive speed, even tricky players like Lennon who just do the wrong things at the wrong time show how truly useless speed and tricks are without being done at the right time.
Ronaldo arrives late into the box for a header at the perfect time because he knows when to arrive, not because he's uber fast. Ronaldo without any tricks would still have scored the majority of the goals he's scored.
IT also wasn't clear but it looked like someone suggested Barca don't buy established players? Eidur, Henry, MEndieta, De Boer, Silvinho, Van Bronkhurst, Toure, Kluivert, Overmars, Petit, Eto'o and too many others too list to be honest.
Also Ronaldo was mostly as good as he was in his first seasons as later seasons, the biggest difference was he turned into a man(albeit rather gay dressing one), he was far more "slight" in his build which meant a lot of the brushes against people at speed turned into falls where he now(unless wanting to dive) rides a lot of challenges which gets him where he needs to go. Yes he improved but not by miles at all, the potential was there. Nani, ANderson, they don't have that potential at all, they will never ever be close to world class players, they are closer to being Djemba/Kleberson's than being the next Ronaldo/Scholes for the club.
couple that with the matchfixing that is rife in Italy shows what a good shape English football is. Yet we still have a bad name 
