7
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 32
- Goals
- 4
- Assists
- 13
- Yellow cards
- 3
- Red cards
- 1
- Status
Really? Which three players are you talking about?
Di Maria, Herrera and Shaw? Bit harsh on the latter I'd say, he has done ok at left back
I think this is a typical reaction to a team when you bring in several high profile players. It happens all the time. Just look at Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, Chelsea, Man City - whenever they buy amazing players in chunks they end up having to empty the trash can. Usually you have to make buys like this over a longer period and try to hold on the the ones that are golden. It might be that only 50% of our players we bought within a year will be staying.
I would say Hererra has made a "significant contribution" too, even if it's taken him until now to establish himself in our best XI.
From ESPN
I liked "beautiful chaos" to describe what di Maria does at his best. For me, that's what United created under Fergie and what's been missing since he left.
Has done nothing to show he's worth even half of what he was bought for.
We got rid of Nani and bought another one for the British transfer record, only for the Nani we let go to have an immense season.
We got rid of Nani and bought another one for the British transfer record, only for the Nani we let go to have an immense season.
I like how every midfielder we buy suddenly turns into shit because "he needs constant movement" around him, starting from Kagawa, Mata to Di Maria. Then the strikers turn into shit because they do not have any service from midfield. This catch 22 shit is unbearable season after season.
Has done nothing to show he's worth even half of what he was bought for.
We got rid of Nani and bought another one for the British transfer record, only for the Nani we let go to have an immense season.
That may be so, but that Portugese competition mostly consists of clubs with lesser budgets than Championship clubs. Only the Lisboa and Porto clubs that are on a good to decent level.
It's an excuse to use for players playing shite. Lack of movement should not result in Di Maria deciding to misplace passes, lose his dribbling ability and become selfish instead of playing the ball to open players on the break, he's just a player who is either really disinterested or who was made to look a lot better than he was at Madrid, coming off the back of a purple patch season.
It is a huge reason why we've struggled to play good attacking football though for years now. Our forwards and midfielders combined don't have enough movement off the ball. Too many static players, or the wrong runs being made. Too slow to pass it around and not stretching teams and making space for a through pass. Though Di maria still has the quality to make it happen and does a few times every game, but of course every player relies on the whole team to do well to get the best out of them. It's a team sport after all. He's playing poorly individually, or inconsistently, and should be doing better, but it's not exactly an ideal system for creative players that we use.
Fair enough, but if you'd have watched Nani in the CL his best performances have come against the best teams. He was voted in the top 3 players in the CL group stages, behind Hazard and Messi. Nani has had a much better season so far than Di Maria, there's no question about that. Not to say that Nani is a better player than Di Maria, but he is undoubtedly having a better season.
Only Fabregas has more assists in the league. He's doing at least something. Plus the three goals.Has done nothing to show he's worth even half of what he was bought for.
We got rid of Nani and bought another one for the British transfer record, only for the Nani we let go to have an immense season.
2nd most assists. Falcao.
Weird that. But not so really. Those two aren't performing as well as they could but they do have talent and it takes so little for them to change the game like Falcao did last weekend. He didn't do anything before that penalty.
Have faith in Di Maria. This poor and has 9 assists.
That's the thing though, I don't know who to blame for that lack of cohesion other than the manager but this is the same manager that turned shit into strawberry smoothie at the world cup so has even he got worse after coming to Manchester?
Di Maria had plenty of movement around him yesterday like the wide open Ashley Young who made a great run and should have received a simple 6 year pass to score a goal, yet Di Maria misplaced it.
Assists and goals are such a touchy subject. Nani still to this day is up there with the most assists in the past decade or so in the PL, despite being piss poor for about 6 and a half of his 8 years here. Showing assists and goals aren't the be and say all. Fact of the matter is he's been much too poor for his fee. He was bought to control games and get us forward, not to serve up this shite.
That being said, I'm a huge ADM fan, I've got his jersey for this season and think he's a brilliant player, doesn't save him from criticism though, started off so well and is just getting worse with every game. Breaking the transfer record for a player should result in a world class player who can dominate games and be a team's talisman. He is just another Nani in the fact that he has immense talent and is unplayable when he's in the mood but he's too often just not in it.
Nani was a lot better than you give him credit for.
Assists suggest involvement in build up. Di Maria has very much been involved. He was key at the beginning of the season but now he isn't feeling it.
Personally, I think our attacking problems are down to the manager. He promised attacking football yet everything he says, and what players say about him, suggests that he limits that. He plays it safe and tries to hang on clean sheets despite never playing the same defenders. Way too much lack of emphasis on attack and when anyone says that someone loves to bring up the Leicester game like it's some kind of a barometer for United's performance this season.
How much rotation is there with City, Arsenal and Chelsea players? How many times do they change tactics? United lack tactical consistency and it shows in our play.
If you'd go back and look back at my old posts you'd realise I'm a huge Nani fanboi
Although, doesn't change the fact that for all his talent he was far too often just not good enough, whether that's down to people's expectations of him or whatever, it wasn't enough, bar an immense 18 months with us. Being involved is fine, Welbeck was a player who also used to get involved a lot too. Is that honestly enough to justify breaking the British transfer record? Also good point, I agree with the static football LVG plays, but tactics should not result in a seemingly world class player no longer being able to pass a ball or to ruin counters and breaks with selfish play, or for him to no longer be as lethal a dribbler as he was.
The best players can boss games and get struggling teams out of bad situations, that's what I and many others were expecting by signing arguably RM's most important player last season and a World XI player.
You can't underestimate the influence the team form or personal form has on your psyche not to mention moving to a new country and playing in a new league. Di Maria was also great at Benfica but wasn't great right away with Real.If you'd go back and look back at my old posts you'd realise I'm a huge Nani fanboi
Although, doesn't change the fact that for all his talent he was far too often just not good enough, whether that's down to people's expectations of him or whatever, it wasn't enough, bar an immense 18 months with us. Being involved is fine, Welbeck was a player who also used to get involved a lot too. Is that honestly enough to justify breaking the British transfer record? Also good point, I agree with the static football LVG plays, but tactics should not result in a seemingly world class player no longer being able to pass a ball or to ruin counters and breaks with selfish play, or for him to no longer be as lethal a dribbler as he was.
The best players can boss games and get struggling teams out of bad situations, that's what I and many others were expecting by signing arguably RM's most important player last season and a World XI player.
He played 52 games for Real Madrid last season and then all of the WC until he got injured and missed the final. He played a lot. After the WC in 2010 he struggled for the first half of the season in La Liga too.
I don't agree with that in general, and in the case of Di Maria he wasn't RM's most important player, he was probably the 5th player in their team behind Xabi Alonso, Pepe, Ronaldo and Modric.
Modric and Xabi Alonso being the ones who bossed games, Di Maria was their impact player, his energy was a disturbance for the opponents but without the proper midfielders around him and without Ronaldo to score most the chances created and without Pepe to cover most defensive mistakes from his teammates, Di Maria would have been lambasted for all the stupid shots, stupid dribbles and stupid misplaced passes he continued to make.
Di Maria is definitely a big part of the blame, but it's not just him. Just as it was with Kagawa, we weren't set up in any way to get the most out of him, but he wasn't doing enough to get the best out of himself. With Di Maria though it's more inconsistency rather then not doing enough. He gets on the ball a lot, he works hard, it's just one game he picks out the right passes, gets past players, his flicks come off and then the next game they don't. He still makes plenty of chances, even on his off days, which is why he's still an important player to the team even when he isn't at his best, but we know he can do so much more as he was doing at the start of the season and since then only on occasion.
To get consistent, world class performances out of your best attacking players though, you need a working, cohesive system that suits everyone. We are far away from that. It doesn't matter who you are, you will struggle for consistency and any type of form if you play like we have been. Put Silva, Sanchez, Aguero, Hazard, anyone in our team currently, and they wouldn't be amazing or consistent. Put Di Maria in Liverpool's side last season, Real Madrid, Chelsea, or Arsenal even, and he'd be a lot more consistent in showing his quality attacking wise. Every team who is good attacking wise has fast and skillful players who make runs off the ball for the creative players to pick them out. We have Young and Di maria, but that's about it. They're both creative players anyways, not the ones you want at the end of those passes.
We really should look to copy the Madrid side of last season going forward with pace and power on the counter.
A three man midfield of Blind/Carrick, Herrera and Di Maria, front three of Memphis, Rooney and Bale next season. Nani, Januzaj, Young, Wilson can all rotate in the front positions.
A three man midfield of Blind/Carrick, Herrera and Di Maria, front three of Memphis, Rooney and Bale next season. Nani, Januzaj, Young, Wilson can all rotate in the front positions.
People keep mentioning his assists, but don't forget that two or three of them were just scuffed shots that luckily fell to our forwards. He could easily be a lot worse in that statistic.
True.
He could easily be a lot better if our forwards weren't doing their best Sunday league impressions as well.
And he could easily be a lot better with it if Van Persie and Falcao didn't miss so many sitters. Would probably be sitting on 15 at least so far if either of them had anything close to their old finishing ability.
If he gets one more assist he'll have the best assist per minute rate in the history of the prem apparently for those with 10 or more (since they started counting them of course)
Yeah, fair point.
That being said, his best form for us when he looked like a real world beater was his first few games, his performances since have declined and seem to be getting worse, rather than better as you suggest. Disinterested? Buckling under pressure? Use whatever excuse you want, won't change the fact that his performances have been nothing like that of someone with such ability. Take Sanchez for example, Fabregas, Costa, all came in and are destroying the premier league for the same continent, we can't keep using that as an excuse for his bad performances.
Di Maria's performance in the CL final shows what he's capable of and how much he could boss a game. He was the only player in that Madrid team who didn't look like a mug and who genuinely looked like he wanted to win. He was head and shoulders above every other RM player and was rightly so awarded the MOTM award. Also your point about the players he had around him I agree with, which is all the reason more why I find his transfer fee so ridiculous. Maybe it's just a case of great player, wrong team?
Of course the Leicester game is consistently brought up, it's an important example no matter how much you try to diminish it's relevance. We went to score goals with a defence that was unable to deal with the consequences and we paid the price. It's a mystery as to fans still wonder why we play this slow, possession, risk free style of football when the results are there to see. If we played the way we did that game all season, we'd have a lot more results similar to that one, we'd be losing games and contrary to popular belief, "playing exciting football" would not be a satisfactory consolation.
Firstly, both Modric and Ramos were better than Di Maria in the regular 90 minutes, even before the equaliser came. Arguably the whole 120 minutes (though obviously the run for Bale's goal was pretty standout for MOTM honours). Both were major players in that equaliser, without which Di Maria was going down in the same ship along with Ronaldo and Bale, getting a 7 out of 10 mark (if that) for a team that would have just failed to notch a goal in their biggest game in 12 years.
Don't mix Ronaldo being quiet, Bale missing a couple of chances and Khedira having no influence in Alonso's place, for the whole team not playing well (or at least competing and matching a really organised and focused team) or caring. It's stupidly insulting to Marcelo, Ramos, Varane, Carvajal, Modric and Isco at the very least.
Far too much of this downplaying of what every other Real Madrid player did last season in order to raise Di Maria's acclaim higher. Especially when Modric and Ronaldo both had better seasons and other players like Ramos, Pepe, Alonso, Bale and even Benzema, weren't exactly trailing by much. It would be like if United had an amazing run to the end of the season and won the FA Cup, PSG fans claiming Di Maria did it almost single-handedly and was the only one trying, just because Blind, Smalling, Rojo, Shaw, Rafael and Januzaj wouldn't get the same press coverage for their performances.
Interesting to note as far as chances created in the game. Ronaldo ended up with 3 (some in garbage time, as the American fans say), Di Maria and Isco (the latter subbed on only in the second half) 2 each and several other players chipped in solitary chances. Without that assist in stoppage time, the team's main expected source of creativity would have produced just a solitary chance in a 1-0 defeat to their bitterest rivals. A few flash dribbles wouldn't have got him off with the Real crowd, even though Bale and Ronaldo would have probably got hit worse.
Modric won the ball half a dozen times, 90% passing, created the most important goal of the match with a perfect cross and won as many free kicks in dangerous positions with his dribbling in tight areas as Di Maria did.
If we're going for accuracy of how the game played out. The Real defence were pretty solid and efficient all match, Modric was class in midfield and Di Maria outplayed Bale and Ronaldo a bit without creating much until the exquisite move in extra time. People would have forgotten the 2 or 3 nice bits of skill and dribbles he did in the regular 90 minutes pretty quick, if they'd have lost the game and not lead to anything, with him as uncreative as everyone else.
Watch Di Maria realising what type of player he is, without getting misty eyed about this top 5 player in the world single-handedly winning Champions League medals thing, and you won't be underwhelmed by the quality player you have this season. Essentially what he was for 90% of his time at Real Madrid (until those final 6 or 7 months of last season, when Real instantly decided to cash in for a guy like Rodriguez, who gives the ball away half as much and scores twice as often). Difficult to keep playing a guy who gives the ball away constantly in a midfield 3, though I'm sure Ancelotti would have happily kept trying it given the chance.
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Amen.
Not to mention the fact that half the caf are wilfully ignoring the fact they spent most of Fergie's last season moaning about our slow paced "zombie passing". And now it was all "beautiful chaos" apparently.
You're arguing about something I agree with. Fact of the matter is Di Maria was voted MOTM in the final and was in my opinion the stand out player, if it wasn't for his incredible individual skill to put bale through they wouldn't have gone on to win, that's the jist of it. That's what we paid for, individual moments of brilliance to win games, regardless of how good or poor the rest of the team is playing. That's how you boss a game, by deciding it due to individual brilliance. Real Madrid as a team were underwhelming, including their giants Ronaldo and Bale. If it hadn't been for ADM they would not have gone on to win as mentioned earlier, regardless of what you think Modric or the others did, as an attacking minded player, he was the catalyst of that final, was all over the place and causing trouble all game, was playing as if he was possessed. Playing well enough in a Champions league final is not enough, defence might have played well, Modric was class I agree, but those moments are what make or break a team in the Champions League. Now obviously that's not what you'd expect every game, but for people to keep making excuses for his bad performances is where I don't agree. The weather and etc talk is bollocks, his best form was his first few games, instead of getting better and improving the synergy with the team he has gotten worse. Now that might be down to the manager or our game style or whatever, he isn't performing nearly well enough, not by a top 5 in the world standards as you claim, as he is at this moment far from that, I wouldn't go as far to say he's been the top 5 players in our team this season, let alone in the world. He's a great player who for whatever reason is not playing well enough. If we wanted and inconsistent, yet brilliant player we could have kept Nani and spent the 70m or whatever it was elsewhere.
People need to consider his fitness. Had a very long season with Madrid last season then Argentina went all the way to the end in the World Cup.
Poor bloke probably needs an extended break from it. Me thinks we will probably see a truer version of di Maria next season
Poor bloke probably needs an extended break from it. Me thinks we will probably see a truer version of di Maria next season
Do you remember what the weather was like when he played those first few games?
Generally agree with your post but I think he can be cut a bit of slack because it's his first season here and it's to be expected that he would take a while to settle, get used to the different way the game is played/refereed and (yes) the weather.
Aye, that thread
I remember the criticism well. It was at times, valid too. But yeah, the negativity is spiralling.
Aye, that thread
I remember the criticism well. It was at times, valid too. But yeah, the negativity is spiralling.
The way I see it, there's an awful lot of similarity between the post-Fergie era and numerous "transitional" seasons when Fergie was still in charge. And I would even call his last season, kind of transitional, despite winning the league. Key players (Rio, Vidic, Evra, Giggs, Scholes) were crumbling at the seams and the next generation didn't seem quite ready to take their place. Hence we had lots of not very good performances, very rarely played with any kind of swagger and this place was full of people listing all the stuff that Fergie was doing wrong in terms of team selection and tactics.
It's been a recurring theme over the years. In periods between Fergie's great teams you get an upsurge of fans who imply he's losing the plot by picking the wrong players, getting it all wrong in the transfer market, constantly chopping and changing and being tactically out-thought by all the best teams around. Then, lo and behold, a year or two later we're winning the league at a canter and beating the best teams in Europe. The dissenting voices at the time were - thankfully - in the minority as most sensible heads appreciated that it was impossible to transition from one great team to another without a few experiments, not all of which would come off. Ultimately, we all (well, most of us) were comfortable that Fergie knew best so wouldn't throw our toys out of the pram if we had to endure a season or two of frustration.
We're treading new ground since he left, though. Our security blanket is gone and even the most sensible and experienced fan is going to worry that the manager isn't up to the job if he can't turn things round in his first season in charge. A year or two in transition is not an option any more. It's a horrible state of affairs but we'll have to get used to it. It's the same shit most fans of most other clubs have been going through for as long as they can remember.
'beautiful chaos'
Classic.
Classic.
Whether anyone thinks it's an option or not, it's the way of the world. What we want won't change that. Might as well just accept that probably no one could have just carried a la Ferguson. No, not even Maureen or Ancelloti.
Yep, that's a ton of "perspective" right there and well put. Agree with every word there. That security blanket is the single biggest contributing factor, and the scary part for most of our fanbase (including myself) is that we will most probably never get another SAF, and he is all I have ever know at United - we'll have to go through these transitional periods with a "new manager" every so often and place our "trust" in him. As you mentioned, it was a given to place that trust in SAF, even through a difficult year or 2 because we knew that he had a plan and that he had the answers.
Yep, our generation (or well, at least mine - i don't want to give away your age there Pogue
) of fans have truly been spoilt. Success to us is almost a right and not a privilege. Fortunately the club and all the success SAF brought it, has placed us in a very special position where we can have a few years of transition but still have the financial muscle to come back.Ah the weather was a bollox in those games!
I know it's been a while since we've seen the damn thing but what is that strange, bright light on the pitch? Could it be... sunshine?
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