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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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Di Maria performance is down to Van Gaal playing players in position they should not be playing.
Blind at lcb
Rooney in midfield
Di Maria as striker
Di Maria is a much better player facing goal and being the creator, then he is facing his back towards it, with limited opportunity to orchestrate and have space to run into with the ball.
 
Galactic said:
LVG is using him similar to how he used to use Arjen Robben. I like.
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Robben's a fantastic finisher and Di Maria a fantastic assister from deep.

Glad he's not got overcommitted defensively though, playing with a bit more freedom.
 
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Our 2 best players are both playing out of position and actually in each others. Its shit like this that irritates me.
 
Wow for a player of his quality really poor show, can't even put in a decent corner or free kick let alone in open play. Just back from injury and playing in a new position so will give him the benefit of the doubt.
 
Varun said:
Our 2 best players are both playing out of position and actually in each others. Its shit like this that irritates me.
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But let's blame the players all the time and not the manager. Imagine what he'd do under Fergie.
 
He's wasted up front. Give him space to run and be creative. He's not a striker and it's pointlessly frustrating trying to force him to play there.
 
ha_rooney said:
He's wasted up front. Give him space to run and be creative. He's not a striker and it's pointlessly frustrating trying to force him to play there.
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At home, as a striker, against a well organized defense, it's stupid to play him there. Away from home, in a counter attacking set up, it would be much better.
 
I think some of the people who put the boot into Ozil will be squirming because so far he's following a very similar pattern.
 
Terrible today but what the hell in playing him upfront? yeah lets play Di Maria#10 then put Rooney in midfield. Bizarre.
 
Tried to do a bit too much today. Still, him and RVP basically had no decent service. Also, unfortunately for him what he tried didn't come off today.

I still think he would shine in a 4-3-3 formation (which LVG implemented at bayern) and play a similar role to arjen robben. Don't understand why we insist on using this nonsense 3-5-2 formation which the players are clearly uncomfortable with and have no idea how it works when we go forwards.
 
Stop playing him as forward, stop playing him as winger... what's next, stop playing him at all and we will see the genius he is?

He needs to improve his decision making and stop playing like he is ten times better than anyone else and trying everything himself and be more patient with the ball. Anyone can play good when the team is built around him. We have few players who could have team built around them so we should stop using the excuse of him being played out of position. Hardly anyone in the team is afforded being played in his favourite position at the moment, actually most of our players are played out of position more than he is.
 
Let's play him as a left wing back. He can't be any worse than he is as a striker and LVG clearly won't play him in midfield. Why not?
 
Had a poor game but he is only back from injury so that's understandable. I'm still not sure why Van Gaal decided to move him out of midfield when he was our best player in the first 2 months of the season. He's been less frequently involved in games since then and his quality has diminished.
 
Only getting back to match fitness and was playing in the wrong position in my opinion. Nothing to be worried baout here. A week off until QPR and he'll be right as rain then.
 
Amar__ said:
Stop playing him as forward, stop playing him as winger... what's next, stop playing him at all and we will see the genius he is?

He needs to improve his decision making and stop playing like he is ten times better than anyone else and trying everything himself and be more patient with the ball. Anyone can play good when the team is built around him. We have few players who could have team built around them so we should stop using the excuse of him being played out of position. Hardly anyone in the team is afforded being played in his favourite position at the moment, actually most of our players are played out of position more than he is.
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If anything, we're just too patient with the ball, I dont blame him at all for trying to do things. There was this 1 moment right at the start of the game. He was under a lot of pressure from one of the Soton CMs with Shaw wide open. Di Maria held onto the ball, got past the CM, played it to Rooney and ran forward looking for a return pass only for Rooney to take 2 touches, kill the move and then lay it off to Shaw. Frustrating.

regarding the part in bold, it shows in how we're playing doesnt it?
 
DevilRed said:
Tried to do a bit too much today. Still, him and RVP basically had no decent service. Also, unfortunately for him what he tried didn't come off today.

I still think he would shine in a 4-3-3 formation (which LVG implemented at bayern) and play a similar role to arjen robben. Don't understand why we insist on using this nonsense 3-5-2 formation which the players are clearly uncomfortable with and have no idea how it works when we go forwards.
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To be fair, Di Maria got tonnes of service today. The one he almost fed through for Rooney, the Blind ball over the top and a number of other passes to put him in 1 on 1 with the last defender or 3 on 3; just didn't do much with them.
 
Him playing as a striker doesnt excuse him for all those missplaced passes and shots out of nothing, which werent even barely dangerous. He wanted to do too much by himself, especially in the positions where he could pass to a teammate.
He got in a few good positions and then he either missed a pass or try to shoot form lousy positions.
Sure he shouldnt play as a striker but he was poor today and not because the position he played.

But he only got back from injury so I'll bet he'll be better.
 
We bought a player whose best position is in a formation we don't and won't use because we have too many other big names who can't be accommodated into it. Looked rusty and struggled in that position, if we aren't going to use him in midfield then it should be as a winger not as a striker.
 
I expected this. Merely replicating robben Persie at the WC
 
Varun said:
regarding the part in bold, it shows in how we're playing doesnt it?
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Yeah, it shows, but you should play in formation your manager wants you to, like everybody else. I like that he is trying, I always appreciated his kind of players for that, but he is trying too much and he looks too greedy and too stupid trying it. Giggsy was always thinking forward but he never looked this greedy as he is now. Giggs would never ruin that attack like he did when he tried to shot but had van Persie in very good situation. We payed 60m pounds for him to improve the team, not to improve his dribbling or shooting because he couldn't do it next to Ronaldo.
 
There was a comment by ancelloti the other day .. Demaria can produce the magic but he loses the ball too much .. That's exactly what I am seeing from him.... Shoots from halfway line ... Makes some Hollywood passes .. Tries some flicks that seldom works .. Still produces some magic ... Is he worth 60mm .. Don't think so
 
he needs to play in a midfield three, on the left side of it. That's where he played last season for Madrid. LvG needs to stop fecking about...
 
The_Midfielder said:
There was a comment by ancelloti the other day .. Demaria can produce the magic but he loses the ball too much .. That's exactly what I am seeing from him.... Shoots from halfway line ... Makes some Hollywood passes .. Tries some flicks that seldom works .. Still produces some magic ... Is he worth 60mm .. Don't think so
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This season. Di Maria's dribbling success is 38%; Bale's is 60%. For all the mocking of Bale's dribbling, he's so enormous it's hard to win the ball off him without fouling.
 
Bordering on mismanagement to just not play him in the position where he's clearly at his most effective. Not that it's an excuse for that performance from him today.
 
One of the biggest black marks against Van Gaal's reign so far is the stagnation of attacking wide players such as Di Maria and Januzaj.
 
luckyspurs said:
This season. Di Maria's dribbling success is 38%; Bale's is 60%. For all the mocking of Bale's dribbling, he's so enormous it's hard to win the ball off him without fouling.
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That's crazy, if true.
 
Sam said:
Just a gentle little reminder for those of you who seem to have have already forgotten just how good the lad is ;):drool:

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And then we go on to play him in striker....
 
I'm just presuming that Van Gaal never watched Real Madrid last season because if he did he wouldn't be messing around wasting Di Maria in stupid positions. Why LVG chose to play Rooney in midfield and Di Maria upfront rather then both in their normal positions was just daft today.
 
0% shot accuracy
0% take-ons completed
0% crosses completed
0 key passes
60% pass accuracy.
 
Don't know why Van Gaal tried to use him as a Robben/Sanchez today. He's not that sort of player. Perhaps if we were going to play on the counter, and loop one round the back of the last man - like the 2nd goal against Yeovil - then it would make a bit more sense, but we looked set to keep the ball and probe, and playing him as a striker made him look shit. He had his back to goal the whole time, and that's just not his game. He should have been picking up the ball where Rooney or Mata were mostly playing, and launching at them.

He was poor today, but I'm not overly disappointed in him. Playing with his back to goal, trying to flick the ball on first time like a target man is unfamiliar territory for him. I don't know why we'd pick the most lightweight player in our squad to do such a job.
 
He was brilliant at the start of the season playing in CM, but since things were working LVG being LVG had to change it around. Complete waste of 60m playing him on the wing and upfront.
 
Yea, if we thought that playing him on a wing in 4141 was stupid then today we've got a clear winner. Playing him as a pace-based striker against a team who surrenders all the possession for us to create feck all.
 
JoaquinJoaquin said:
I'm just presuming that Van Gaal never watched Real Madrid last season because if he did he wouldn't be messing around wasting Di Maria in stupid positions. Why LVG chose to play Rooney in midfield and Di Maria upfront rather then both in their normal positions was just daft today.
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Juan Mata is the answer to that.

He knows Rooney will do the defensive shift, Mata and Di Maria in the middle would be a disaster.
 
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