Another quality assist, I thought he also looked sharp and showed a little more patience today when he got the ball, good signs.
7
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 32
- Goals
- 4
- Assists
- 13
- Yellow cards
- 3
- Red cards
- 1
- Status
Yeah. Becks got 23 assists in all competitions the year we won the treble (as did Yorke, which is crazy cos he also scored 29 times that year too!).
Still, it is incredible that Di Maria's been injured, off form and on the bench at various times this season and he needs to make just five more goals in our last seven games to break our Premier League assists record. If he starts the last seven would you bet against him?
He woke up and was still angel di Maria.So what exactly did he do wrong today then?
A quick check shows:
Fabregas has 0.65 assists per 90.
Angel has 0.58 assists per 90.
Now consider this:
Chelsea have averaged 2.10 goals per game and United 1.78, we all know how well Chelsea have played this season and how poor United have been. We also know how poor Angel di Maria has been overall so the fact he has been so productive despite being so poor really is exciting and it makes you wonder what he will do next season after a much needed rest, a year of adaption time, and in a United team that will actually play football for the entire season.
And even if he isn't considerably better, he's already productive, if he is less wasteful in possession then he will be a fine winger and I'm sure Louis van Gaal will be able to work on him losing the ball so much.
Fabregas has 0.65 assists per 90.
Angel has 0.58 assists per 90.
Now consider this:
Chelsea have averaged 2.10 goals per game and United 1.78, we all know how well Chelsea have played this season and how poor United have been. We also know how poor Angel di Maria has been overall so the fact he has been so productive despite being so poor really is exciting and it makes you wonder what he will do next season after a much needed rest, a year of adaption time, and in a United team that will actually play football for the entire season.
And even if he isn't considerably better, he's already productive, if he is less wasteful in possession then he will be a fine winger and I'm sure Louis van Gaal will be able to work on him losing the ball so much.
I wouldnt bet against him even coming off the bench tbh
I was hoping for him to come on today and he made a big difference in opening up the game. Some of his decisions were dodgy but the second goal doesn't happen without him.
I tend to get pissed off when Rojo or one of our midfielders are being pressed on the left and Di Maria is nowhere around for a pass. He should be making himself available in a lot of those situations IMO but is screwing around farther up the pitch.
I tend to get pissed off when Rojo or one of our midfielders are being pressed on the left and Di Maria is nowhere around for a pass. He should be making himself available in a lot of those situations IMO but is screwing around farther up the pitch.
He's clearly a genius, but a massively inconsistent, infuriating, low pain thresholded genius at that.
Whenever he plays he makes something happen, but if he had a better brain he could do even better.
Was annoying he didn't make better of the chance when he was through on goal almost, but then he put a nice cross in for rooneys goal. He is always positive which I like, but he can clearly offer so much more!
Whenever he plays he makes something happen, but if he had a better brain he could do even better.
Was annoying he didn't make better of the chance when he was through on goal almost, but then he put a nice cross in for rooneys goal. He is always positive which I like, but he can clearly offer so much more!
He must be the most fortunate assist-maker on the planet. His last two have come due to the absolute genius of those who scored the goal, and there's been 2 or 3 this season that have been shots that turned into passes!
Not that I'm complaining, I'll take his assists however he's prepared to give them.
Not that I'm complaining, I'll take his assists however he's prepared to give them.
Pretty much this.
The most important thing is to find the man, always gives the chance to score a goal. He's usually very consistent with that and that's why he has high assist numbers. Young/Januzaj/Valencia tend to over hit or under hit crosses all the time or just hit the first man, but rarely do they actually pick out people and that's why they don't have good numbers really (as good as Young and Valencia have been, the final ball is still lacking).
He impressed me as well. A very dynamic and electrifying player when he's on. His control and dribbling in traffic can be magic. I hope we can find the best way to use him and his undeniable talent because he can only make us better.
Really good contribution today when he came on and grabbed another assist!
I was pleased that he did good when he came on today.
He'll regain his starting spot without a doubt, he's way too good not to. LVG just wants him to earn it the hard way.
In limited game time, he got another assist.
Top class. Has to start. Him, Mata and Herrera need to play as often as possible.
Top class. Has to start. Him, Mata and Herrera need to play as often as possible.
An assist that was really created by Rooney's brilliance. Other than the assist, I didn't see much from di Maria.
If di Maria misplaced his pass, then there's no goal, as with the Mata goal vs Liverpool. That's something Young and Valencia fail to do, not only today, but throughout the whole season. They've both massively improved, however, their end product isn't good enough.
Definitely agree. Young and Valencia seem to loft it towards the backpost (usually aiming for Fellaini), or straight at the defenders legs in Valencia's case, which is way too high for the short Rooney. Di Maria just places it at a good level for Rooney to work his magic.
And yet we still had chances. This team has never created much all season long, even with di Maria in the lineup. But today and in the past few games, we weren't headless chickens that were in each other's way all the time. I'm not solely putting that on di Maria, I'm also not saying we can't make it work with di Maria, but right now, the team is performing as good as it has all season long without him in the starting lineup. Young, while not being efficient with his crosses, was nevertheless a threat all game long and working very hard on his flank to constantly put pressure on Villa. It's not as if di Maria played on brilliant pass after another, he had an assist, which was just as much Rooney's good work as it was his pass, but outside of that he didn't do much either.
One thing people have to grasp is, I want di Maria to start and perform well as much as anybody for several reasons:
- He's amongst the world's best and a lot of fun to watch, while also capable of adding a dimension to our play that no other player has.
- We paid a club record for him, so I want him to work out just so he was worth the money we spent on him.
- Following up on my first point, if we can't include a player of his caliber and abilities into our play, then we have serious issues because while the team is doing well right now, it is still not good enough to be the dominant force we want to be again. ADM is too good not to perform for us at one point or another.
Despite all of those points, the team comes first to me and right now, he has to earn his spot in the lineup again.
Just because Young and Valencia aren't good at crossing doesn't mean di Maria's pass was great just because it was good in comparison to the end product of the other two. Young and Valencia, on the other hand, are work horses on the flanks, that make sure we are solid and don't get run, something di Maria doesn't do.
As I said though, even if the pass was great, he didn't offer much else and that's the problem.
This. And by doing so Van Gaal helps him. The coach is taking pressure off because starting players are judged more critically imo.
Who cares if the pass wasn't great, the most important thing is that he chose the right pass, a great pass to the wrong player is useless.
The cross was fine. If a cross leads to the recipient scoring a goal, then I couldn't care less about the quality.
Having been very flat for the first 25 minutes of the second half, we looked much better when di Maria came on, and scored 2 goals.
Di Maria can make as many poor assists as he likes as far as I'm concerned.
And once Di Maria get there, I think he'll do his best never to be benched regularly again. He'll become a better player.
12 assists in the PL, which is excellent. For some reason, everywhere else keeps counting 2 less than this. I assume that one of those is the "assist" for winning the penalty against Burnley, but I don't know what the other one is.
Brilliant post mate.
Isn't it 10 assists in the league?
According to here, it's 13 in all comps, with 12 in the league, but other places say 10 in the league. I'm just wondering where the discrepancy comes from.
Hmm, some places are saying 11 in the league too.
I thought it was 12 assists in total, 11 PL and 1 being the cross for Rooney against Arsenal in the FA Cup?
I don't know if I'm missing a Di Maria assist:
Mata v QPR
Herrera vs Leicester
Falcao vs Everton
Fellaini vs WBA
Mata vs Palace
Rooney vs Arsenal
RVP vs Burnley
winning penalty vs Burnley (counts as an assist according to some places)
Herrera vs Swansea
Mata vs Liverpool
Rooney vs Villa
Rooney vs Arsenal (FA Cup)
I appreciate that van Gaal loves control and structure and all that jazz, but it's genuinely a bit tragic that he loves it so much that he's playing Ashley Young ahead of di María. By the end of this season di María will probably have more assists for United than Young has in his entire United career (15), and even when off form he is so, so, so much more dangerous.
I have no idea how Young has managed to convince so many people that he is a "threat" for United, when the vast majority of the time his "threatening" play results in a useless cross or a safe backpass. Yes he gets on the ball and runs at people more often than most of our players it results in so few genuine chances being created. Di María on the other hand can look disinterested, brainless and uninvolved and still create multiple chances.
I'm not convinced he's at all happy here and there's a definite possibility he'll be moving on in the summer, but even if that's the case he's still a much more useful asset than Ashley Young.
I have no idea how Young has managed to convince so many people that he is a "threat" for United, when the vast majority of the time his "threatening" play results in a useless cross or a safe backpass. Yes he gets on the ball and runs at people more often than most of our players it results in so few genuine chances being created. Di María on the other hand can look disinterested, brainless and uninvolved and still create multiple chances.
I'm not convinced he's at all happy here and there's a definite possibility he'll be moving on in the summer, but even if that's the case he's still a much more useful asset than Ashley Young.
I think that you are looking at it the wrong way, most of the time Di Maria ball lost aren't made when he tries a killer ball, but when we are moving the ball, for some reason his attention is less sharp when he isn't trying something special.
Last week I said that no top players have a succeeded pass percentage that low, but I was wrong, I thought about Bayern's players like Ribery and Muller in particular and they are no better than Di Maria with that stat in particular the difference is that they lose the ball much higher than Di Maria.
Van gaal can't ignore that, Di Maria can try everything in the final third but like everyone else, he needs to be meticulous in the other parts of the field, and lately he wasn't careful enough.
Plus, our forwards are talented and/or physical enough that perfect passes are not required. Half chances win games, as we have proven once again by creating a goal from a scrap of inspiration.
He will never be meticulous. Giggs played over two decades of football for us and even in his latter years never managed to be meticulous. He gave the ball away with stupid, fancy flicks and careless, straightforward passes right up until the end. Di María is exactly the same. He's an instinctive player and carelessness comes into it when the game slows down too much, and because of that he might never be a perfect fit for a van Gaal team. His attitude at the moment probably exacerbates that. It doesn't change the fact that even though he's not a perfect fit he's still far more useful than Ashley Young.
I genuinely don't agree with the part in bold, which I never thought I'd say.
I don't think we can rely on Di Maria in the long run.
He doesn't seem to have the intelligence to play a possession game, and is too erratic in his passing and overall decision making.
Until the end of the season I'd play Young over him.
1 minute into the game and an assist. I like Young and commend him for pulling his United career out of a gutter but he is 10 pence to Di Maria's pound.
He really is. When the end product is around 10 times better than Young's, I can forgive him for losing the ball a few times more. Just look at the last two matches, Young played quite well but on the end didn't produced much. Di Maria played only a bit and while wasn't that specacular made two assists, and created two other great chances which in the end was the difference between a win and a draw.
Despite him being this 'bad' and missing many games he's our second most productive player and is leading on assists.
I don't think he's playing Young ahead of him as some permanent thing or that he rates him higher in the system, it'd just be harsh to drop Young as he was in good form and did nothing wrong at all, plus he does a lot of defensive work and has a good understanding with Blind. His attacking output is very poor of course but he keeps his width and works hard always which is also important for the general shape of the team. Di Maria started every game until he got sent off against Arsenal (and was in poor form even if most on here went way overboard), then was suspended for the Spurs game and our team as a whole had our best performance of the season. Would have been incredibly harsh on Young to put him back in and wouldn't have sent the right message I think if he just walked back in on the back of a dumb suspension while the rest of the team put out a great performance.
Since then Di Maria had 2 relatively promising sub appearances (really good today, meh against Liverpool) while Young had just a few decent games. Wouldn't surprise me to see him starting in the next game or two again, but with it being City and Chelsea you could also understand Van Gaal wanting the extra defensive solidity and then using Di maria from the bench later on to change the game if necessary.
Next season I'm sure we'll see him back at his best, or in good form. There were a feck ton of problems with the whole team this season, he tried carrying us at first, but then got injured and since then it's been very stop start for him with everything going on. A proper pre season and a year behind him in the premier league will do him a world of good IMO. Selling him would be a huge mistake, especially considering the money we'd get is completely irrelevant to us as we can afford anyone anyways.
- Status