Why Angel Di Maria Is the Most Frustrating Player in the Manchester United Squad
The purchase of Angel Di Maria was one of the most exciting transfers in Manchester United's history.
After years of relative parsimony in the transfer market, looking to buy up-and-coming talent over established superstars, United's direction had clearly begun to change in the wake of the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson.
David Moyes' first summer in charge saw United target some very big names, as Moyes told Matt Lawton of the Mail on Sunday in August 2014.
They were not successful in attracting them, but things began to change with the arrival of Juan Mata in January 2014.
Di Maria's arrival was dream-signing stuff. Here was a player arriving off the back of a man-of-the-match performance in the Champions League final. Here was a player of proven quality, which he had displayed at football's highest levels.
Here was a player whose sale was difficult to comprehend so important had he been for Real Madrid.
When he took to the field for his United debut at Turf Moor back in late August 2014, Di Maria looked every inch a world beater. Playing on the left of a midfield three, with licence to patrol the left flank and run with the ball through the centre of the pitch, he looked like he had been teleported in from a higher level of football.
Seeing him brought home with stark reality how far the standards at United had slipped under Moyes and even in the last couple of years under Sir Alex. There was an intangible quality of, well...there was an intangible quality of quality.
His home debut was electrifying. At Turf Moor, he had clearly not been fully fit, denied a proper pre-season through his World Cup injury and the transfer saga he had been part of.
By the time Queens Park Rangers rolled into town, though, Di Maria was more ready for them, and his running from deep lit up Old Trafford. Here, at last, was a true edge-of-your-seat player.
Then slowly the energy began to fade. He picked up an injury, had a horrendous experience as his house was broken into. A long, grey Manchester winter took hold.
The frustration crept in, both for and with Di Maria. A couple of specific moments stand out. The first is, unsurprisingly, his dismissal against Arsenal. That, though, was the tip of an iceberg that had begun long before that.
It is easy to see why he would be frustrated with officialdom in general, seeing as it was offering him much less protection than he had been used to in Spain.
However, he did himself no favours. It is not as if the Premier League is some sort of moral gold standard for on-pitch behaviour, but his overly theatrical dives stood out in a way that had not done previously.
It was not just officialdom but also his own performances and perhaps his manager's eventual response to them that lay beneath the surface of that moment of frustration. The Arsenal game immediately followed two in which he had been substituted, once at half-time and once after 60 minutes, replaced by Adnan Januzaj.
Louis van Gaal eventually seemed to have reached breaking point with Di Maria's inconsistency. And it was understandable that he had, though he must take some responsibility. After all, using Di Maria in a variety of positions and in a variety of systems cannot have been good for his attempts to rebuild match rhythm.
The other moment that stands out was the Argentinian's performance against Crystal Palace at home in November 2014. It was a game United eventually won 1-0, and Di Maria's simple pass to Juan Mata is logged as one of his many assists for the season.
However, it had been a long, frustrating evening for fans watching Di Maria try to make something happen. After the game, Van Gaal was clearly unhappy with the performance of his superstar forward. He said, per David McDonnell in the Mirror:
"Sometimes you cannot dribble, so you have to make it a passing game, and Di Maria is not a player who wants to give a pass every time he gets the ball, but in this case we needed that and not dribbles.
Therefore he lost the ball a lot and that was not good for the balance of the team.
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Ultimately, the reason Di Maria was the most frustrating player in the United squad is because he is probably just about the most talented.
During his first season, that talent was only displayed sporadically. If he stays at the club, fans will be hoping that next season he is instead worthy of the title of United's best player.
That is probably the title his talent deserves.
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