Why Manchester United Must Show Patience with Memphis Depay

Memphis Depay is a prodigiously gifted footballer who has struggled to make an impact in his first season at Manchester United.

Given his age, profile and the level of experience he had when he was signed, there should be no question that United give up on him after one poor campaign. Indeed, even during a season in which he has struggled, there have been glimpses of the player he could become.

For the biggest clubs, buying young, talented players involves risk. It is never clear how a player will take to the brighter spotlight, for example. Nor is it guaranteed that talented youngsters will develop into genuine world-beaters.

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Injuries, players' attitudes, their relationship with their coaches and team-mates, and the performances of the players with whom they are competing for positions—all of these can have an impact.

In this process—so rife with uncertainty—there will be inconsistency, and patience is an inarguable requirement for success.

This is the case in general, but even more specifically so when there are mitigating circumstances, which there are here.

In 2015/16, Manchester United has been a place of mixed blessings for talented youngsters. Anthony Martial has been pretty much undroppable, thanks to his positional versatility and immediate impact. Marcus Rashford has recently found himself in the same boat.

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However, there are a group of talented players with a slightly different skill set that manager Louis van Gaal does not seem to know quite what to do with. Memphis, Adnan Januzaj and Andreas Pereira are the most obvious examples of this.

There is an argument that the key to this can be best understood in terms of tactics. Van Gaal is Dutch, and comes from a world in which 4-3-3 is ingrained into the fabric of football in the way in which Match of the Day, or "Abide With Me" being sung before the FA Cup final is in England.

However, as his career has progressed, Van Gaal has become less of an advocate for the system. The games in which he has played a recognisable, Dutch-style 4-3-3 at United can be counted on the fingers of both hands. Even then, the right-wing position was occupied by Juan Mata—a "false right-winger" as the United boss called him, per Sky Sports. 

Each of Memphis, Pereira and Januzaj would probably fit the bill in one of the wide-forward slots in a Dutch 4-3-3.

Januzaj's treatment in particular highlights Van Gaal's difficulties in knowing what to do with a player he might perceive as a fit for that role when the team is set up differently.

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The first solution he has looked to during his time at United is to station that wide-forward player at No. 10. He did so with Januzaj before shipping him off on loan to Borussia Dortmund and did so with Memphis in pre-season.

The switch to 4-2-3-1 with United's No. 7 at No. 10 seemed a peculiar one. After all, United's one period of impressive football had come following a switch to 4-3-3, and Memphis had seemed a perfect choice for the wide-left berth which Ashley Young had previously held.

As the season progressed, it became clear that Van Gaal's decision to play two holding midfielders in almost every game would be the tactically dominant story of United's season.

This meant 4-2-3-1, and after the short-lived experiment with Memphis as the shadow striker was abandoned, he was tried wide on the left, but he is a much less natural fit for that role in a formation which requires him to do more defensive work. In a 4-2-3-1, the wide players are part of the midfield as much as they are part of the attack.

He was the attacking star of the PSV Eindhoven team he had left, working with a perfect foil in Luuk de Jong at centre-forward. Coming into a United side where the attacking unit was not functioning, at a time when Van Gaal was furiously experimenting to try and get it to work, was a challenge.

Added to this was the obvious difficulty he had with the dynamic of the Premier League. In the simplest terms, the 22-year-old always just seemed to want a little too long on the ball. Watching compilations of him in action in the Netherlands, it was clear he was used to less rigorous attention.

Indeed, this theory was given further credence by how devastatingly effective he was against Club Brugge at Old Trafford in the UEFA Champions League qualifier—against an opposition which did give him that time on the ball.

Once his form dipped—presumably in part because of the knock his confidence had taken from a few difficult games in the league—Van Gaal left him out, and he has never truly reintegrated him into the first-team picture. He has started just 14 games in the league this season, fewer than half of United's fixtures.

Further evidence that this might be about Van Gaal's uncertainty over Memphis' suitability for the position available to him in the squad rather than uncertainty in his quality as a player can be found from the Netherlands' 2014 World Cup campaign.

When in charge of that squad, Van Gaal used Memphis as an impact substitute, and bringing him on generally signalled a switch in formation. The player was allowed to play in his most natural position—wide on the left.

Whatever the reasons for his lack of involvement, though, it is clearly having an impact. On Wednesday, Memphis said he "only sometimes" felt the confidence and support he received from national team manager Danny Blind at club level, per TeamTalk.com. 

The article read:

"

Memphis also revealed he has sought reassurances from those within United that he remains a key part of the club’s plans going forward, with Van Gaal’s own future also unclear.

'There are certain people within the club with whom I am talking about this,' said Memphis.

"

It is to be hoped that the answer he gets back from the club is that he is part of the long-term plan. After all, he is a player who was named as the best young footballer in the world by France Football as recently as last summer (h/t the Independent).

Van Gaal's biggest mishandling of Memphis was not his initial decision to drop the player. It was when his charge turned in a performance of such quality it left one opponent on the verge of tears, and then backed that up with a fine display against Arsenal, but was still not considered important enough to keep in the side. 

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It is too soon to give up on Memphis, and a new manager may well have a fresh take on the player.

Perhaps he will never adapt to the Premier League, but he needs to be given a proper chance by a manager prepared to gamble on him if he is to succeed.

That should have been Van Gaal, but as has been the case for much of the Dutchman's tenure at United, things are not as they should have been.

Memphis' talent is such that if the club give up on him, there is every chance they will come to regret it.