And what are these reports based on, other than someone making it up and then the others all copying them? This happens every bloody year with something or other and this place gets its knickers in a twist about it. It must be true because loads of people who make stuff up are reporting it?...no, it's true when either the player or one of the two clubs involved confirm there is truth in it. All we know is that LVG isn't sure if Di Maria will stay...that's it. That's all you've got to go on. I'd like him to stay and prove himself but he's definitely not key to anything at the moment...he couldn't even get in the team towards the end of last season, so Van Gaal's stance makes sense.
Herrera and Shaw were targetted before Van Gaal arrived. We even tried to sign Herrera a year earlier, so there was definitely no input from Van Gaal there. Di Maria and Falcao were not players we needed, and left us with an impossible task in terms of fitting all of the big names into the line up...which partly led to our habbit of playing idiotic counter productive formations for over half the season. Rojo and Blind I did say were Van Gaal signings, though according to Phil Neville, Rojo was a potential target before Van Gaal was there. So arguably only Blind was really a Van Gaal singing.
So we signed 6 players and only at best a couple of them was picked or properly approved by our manager. That's not productive at all. It's all well and good saying "we needed a midfielder", "we needed a left back" etc...Different managers want different types of players to play in these roles. We've seen Van Gaal take a disliking to players like Rafael, and even to an extent Herrera and Shaw. Herrera was not used effectivelly for a majority of last season...in fact of our signings I don't think any were used all that effectively (though in a couple of cases that was at least partly due to injury)
Our signings last summer on the whole made me think "this doesn't make any sense, we're screwing ourselves over"...it was a mess. At the end of August it was very easy to predict the problems we'd have. e.g. playing attacking players in stupid roles just to find room for them, not having an effective midfield, lack of reliable defensive cover, no fullbacks, etc. We went into the summer without any kind of plan at all and it showd very clearly. I was baffled by the euphoria on here.
This time we've signed players we need in positions we need them in, and who the manager will have known about well in advance. It means that a) our signings have made 100% more sense, and b) there's no excuse for Van Gaal if he fails to figure out how to use them properly. I would expect us to be noticablly stronger this season as a result of who weve brought in, but do think we need a striker quite desperately.
I agree with the last point about Di Maria, but the blame for that rests largely with Woodward/the club for me. Spending a record fee on a player after feck all research or input from the person who would be managing them just doesn't seem very wise. I think Di Maria's effort levels have been fine on the pitch, I don't know where alll the stuff about him throwing in the towel has come from. I just don't think he played or adapted particularly well, and was so brainless on the pitch it was actually a noticable handicap to the entire team at times. A second season might do him good, you never know...I also think a move might do him good. It is bizarre to me that everyone wants to pretend and talk like he's already buggered off to PSG and to presume it is because he's a coward. Why not just listen to what Van Gaal has said about it? He doesn't exactly hold back the truth on things.
