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2014-15 Performances

View full 2014-15 profile

5.7 Season Average Rating
Appearances
32
Goals
4
Assists
13
Yellow cards
3
Red cards
1
Status
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Roboc7 said:
Wouldn't be surprised to see him go in the summer if PSG are willing to pay £50-55m for him. Don't think he should be dropped for the game tomorrow, even though his performance wasn't great against Newcastle we missed him when he went off.
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PSG would have to be off their heads to pay £50million for him in the summer. Not only are they hamstrung by FFP (hence they couldn't afford him last year in the first place), but he's not worth anywhere near £50million. If we sold him now we'd be lucky to get £30million, and I don't think we'd even get that. The mixture of Madrid absolutely fleecing us for him because Woody was so desperate for a "galactico" and how catastrophically shit his form has been for us means that he's not even worth half what we paid.

We're basically stuck with him for the foreseeable future.
 
Count Orduck said:
PSG would have to be off their heads to pay £50million for him in the summer. Not only are they hamstrung by FFP (hence they couldn't afford him last year in the first place), but he's not worth anywhere near £50million. If we sold him now we'd be lucky to get £30million, and I don't think we'd even get that. The mixture of Madrid absolutely fleecing us for him because Woody was so desperate for a "galactico" and how catastrophically shit his form has been for us means that he's not even worth half what we paid.

We're basically stuck with him for the foreseeable future.
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"Stuck" with Angel Di Maria.

Managers would give a nut to be in the scenario.
 
Have no idea how the game will go, but you'd think manager would say "This is the sort of game you are here for, go and show the crowd."
 
Even if he is not in his best form right now, I would still start him to be honest. Our end product is bad and we struggle to create anything, so a player like him is vital for us. Even if he loses the ball and is inconsistent, he will still play his 2,3 passes/crosses who will cause some danger and could be the only opportunity to score. I also think Arsenal could be a nice change in how we play, they will not sit deep like most other teams we faced in the last few weeks, they will attack and will give us more room and freedom for our possession-based play. Di Maria is also a weapon on the counter, which is always a good way to score against Arsenal. So while it's not impossible that he could be dropped because of his form in the last few games, I wouldn't do it tomorrow.
 
He'll be alot better with the Old Trafford crowd singing his name, this is a game for him to set the stage on fire.

Put him on the same wing as Monrael and Mertesacker.
 
Of course we should start him tomorrow. Ridiculous question. I can understand dropping him against small teams but he's still one of our most important players and offers us things nobody else in our squad offers anything close to with his pace, dribbling and creativity.
 
Devil may care said:
If he doesn't start tomorrow it could destroy what little confidence he has.
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Surely he's got enough mental strength to deal with missing a few games (or half-games). Every player goes through a weak patch, it's not the end of the world. The manager has to play the players who are currently in the best form (even though he hasn't always done that, I'm thinking of RVP for example) and Di Maria doesn't look like he knows what he's doing on the pitch right now.
IMO the main reason for his poor form is LVG's failure to play him in a fixed position consistently. I think he needs to be put wide on the left and given the time to get used to fitting into a system. Unfortunately LVG has messed around with the team so much all season without settling on anything.
I would start with Januzaj or Mata tomorrow with Di Maria on the bench. I think the guy needs some time to clear his head.
 
He has been struggling more with defenses sitting deep and doubling up on him, but Arsenal will come out and look to attack us. He will thrive with more space and considering how poor Mertesacker looked against Monaco with runners, he should definitely go at them.
 
Adam-Utd said:
He has been struggling more with defenses sitting deep and doubling up on him, but Arsenal will come out and look to attack us. He will thrive with more space and considering how poor Mertesacker looked against Monaco with runners, he should definitely go at them.
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He should have more space against the Arse but even if he's on the bench he could come on in the 2nd half and use his pace against their tiring defenders.
 
RedSRM said:
Surely he's got enough mental strength to deal with missing a few games (or half-games). Every player goes through a weak patch, it's not the end of the world. The manager has to play the players who are currently in the best form (even though he hasn't always done that, I'm thinking of RVP for example) and Di Maria doesn't look like he knows what he's doing on the pitch right now.
IMO the main reason for his poor form is LVG's failure to play him in a fixed position consistently. I think he needs to be put wide on the left and given the time to get used to fitting into a system. Unfortunately LVG has messed around with the team so much all season without settling on anything.
I would start with Januzaj or Mata tomorrow with Di Maria on the bench. I think the guy needs some time to clear his head.
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Right now I'd say he's looking mentally fragile, he seemed gutted when he came off against Newcastle. The game tomorrow is a huge one against another big team at Old Trafford, the type of game players like him thrive on, plus Arsenal's high-line benefits his pace, something Mata and Januzaj don't have a lot of and it isn't like either of them have done much to warrant a start either, our only consistent wide player has been Ashley Young.
 
If he starts i think he will be on fire. Just have that feeling that he will be up for this game.
 
Without Di Maria against Arsenal we won't be able to conduct a proper attack, the ball will get misplaced a lot, even though he does that enough on his own already, he is still a great conductor
 
When he signed, one of Di Maria's strengths was the way he played in the so called 'big matches' - this is one of those games. He will start, of that I have no doubt.
 
Di Maria will surely start tomorrow, a big home game against Arsenal who aren't going to try and be physical or kick him off the pitch. It could be the ideal game for him to get some of his mojo back.
 
bosnian_red said:
Of course we should start him tomorrow. Ridiculous question. I can understand dropping him against small teams but he's still one of our most important players and offers us things nobody else in our squad offers anything close to with his pace, dribbling and creativity.
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Definitely, I really think he'll come alive tomorrow.
 
RonaldoVII said:
Arguably his worst performance was at Old Trafford in his last game when he was subbed at half time and lucky to make it to then.
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That was just one game though, pretty much every other game he has been pretty good actually. His bad form isn't even consistently bad performances, it's just very inconsistent performances with some good and some bad. As Pogue says, most of those bad ones are away and it's part of the reason we have struggled for wins away from home.
 
Count Orduck said:
PSG would have to be off their heads to pay £50million for him in the summer. Not only are they hamstrung by FFP (hence they couldn't afford him last year in the first place), but he's not worth anywhere near £50million. If we sold him now we'd be lucky to get £30million, and I don't think we'd even get that. The mixture of Madrid absolutely fleecing us for him because Woody was so desperate for a "galactico" and how catastrophically shit his form has been for us means that he's not even worth half what we paid.

We're basically stuck with him for the foreseeable future.
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I think he's a fabulous player. Hope he stays for a long time.

If he fails to adapt then playing swapsies with PSG would work. Woody and LvG wouldn't lose face, and it's a way round FFP.
 
Sultan said:
I think he's a fabulous player. Hope he stays for a long time.

If he fails to adapt then playing swapsies with PSG would work. Woody and LvG wouldn't lose face, and it's a way round FFP.
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I don't think there's any denying his talent, but I question his desire to be here and play for the club, and whether he remotely suits the league. He's more Ozil than Sanchez - evidently still talented, but doesn't give a feck and doesn't suit the league.
 
Adam-Utd said:
He has been struggling more with defenses sitting deep and doubling up on him, but Arsenal will come out and look to attack us. He will thrive with more space and considering how poor Mertesacker looked against Monaco with runners, he should definitely go at them.
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This.
He will be key tonight. We definitely don't want to play possession football (what we struggle at) against Arsenal. I hope we go more counter-attacking tonight.
 
Count Orduck said:
I don't think there's any denying his talent, but I question his desire to be here and play for the club, and whether he remotely suits the league. He's more Ozil than Sanchez - evidently still talented, but doesn't give a feck and doesn't suit the league.
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Again, he's looked very good at times in a league 'he doesn't suit', and the 'doesn't give a feck' are highly subjective.
 
He'll be fine, he will kick on sooner rather than later.
 
Adebesi said:
I reckon we'll see a good game from Di Maria tonight. These kinds of games bring out the best in big players like him.
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I sure hope so….
 
Definitely needs a good performance tonight to get all the media spotlight off him, or at least on him in a good way. With his pace, Arsenal should be an ideal opponent given their propensity to leave huge space to counter-attack into. If he can isolate Mertesacker one-on-one (provided he plays), he could really do some damage.

Hopefully with the crowd behind him he'll rediscover some of that early season swagger that was making him look like one of the best players in the League...
 
ipodnani said:
Definitely needs a good performance tonight to get all the media spotlight off him, or at least on him in a good way. With his pace, Arsenal should be an ideal opponent given their propensity to leave huge space to counter-attack into. If he can isolate Mertesacker one-on-one (provided he plays), he could really do some damage.

Hopefully with the crowd behind him he'll rediscover some of that early season swagger that was making him look like one of the best players in the League...
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To be fair the media spotlight on him hasn't been as bad as it was on Ozil, i mean besides the Burglary incident,his criticisms haven't been unfair or anything like that, they wanted Ozil's head last season and he didn't cost as much as £60m.

May be due to the fact that the whole United team is struggling though
 
I think this is a perfect game for Di Maria to shine, I hope he scores one of his 35+ yard shots he keeps trying, it would be a superb way to get him back in form!
 
I don't think he'll score, but I do reckon he will have a stormer. As others have mentioned, his best performances have come at Old Trafford and against Arsenal, he'll have buckets of space to run at them.
 
dxadel said:
To be fair the media spotlight on him hasn't been as bad as it was on Ozil, i mean besides the Burglary incident,his criticisms haven't been unfair or anything like that, they wanted Ozil's head last season and he didn't cost as much as £60m.

May be due to the fact that the whole United team is struggling though
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That's probably true. I think Ozil's problem has been his outward appearance of nonchalance, which can easily be interpreted as a lack of effort/interest. I'm on the fence with Ozil - he's clearly technically a classy player but does he have the mentality to drive him to really influence games and enforce his talent when it really matters? All too often he looks content just going through the motions, though perhaps it's just his languid style/temperament.

Di Maria, on the other hand, at least never hides or absolves himself from responsibility. If anything, he's probably trying too much at the moment and would be better served focusing on the basics (such as balls-to-feet, lay-offs, etc) than constantly trying to beat his man. But I think it's promising, at least regarding his character, that he's not taking the easy way out and hopefully something comes from it tonight...
 
Di Maria sets himself a very high standard and he hasn't hit that this season. However I find it a little odd when people question his decision making on the ball, yes he gives the ball away a lot but he also produces moments of pure brilliance. Without his creativity we would've produced feck all against Newcastle.
 
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