Di Maria, Herrera and Shaw

Pogue Mahone

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Does anyone wonder if Van Gaal was really the impetus behind these signings?

Two of them scouted before he started and the other a statement signing our CEO has clearly been desperate to make since he took over.

Van Gaal likes to play a controlled, possession game where central midfielders need to pass like metronomes. Di Maria and Herrera are far too lose in possesion to play in that kind of role. Liable to be caught in possession and miss the target with their passes. Fairly sure their pass completion % wasn't great in Spain either (someone correct me if I'm wrong?) Two of our most creative players but just don't fit this "philosophy" we keep hearing about.

Di Maria can't play as a wingback and can't convince Van Gaal to play with wingers. So he's playing him as a striker. Where we're over-stocked already. He blatantly doesn't fancy Hererra, who hasn't actually played that badly. And Shaw is a great defender but a hapless wing back.

It's all very disconcerting.
 
We all know the club, rather than van Gaal, had put the work into Herrera and Shaw. But I believe van Gaal gave the go ahead, without doubt.

As for di Maria, any manager in the world would've taken him if possible.

The problem is van Gaal doesn't know his best eleven and has yet to settle on a formation to best suit his players.
 
The right formation still sees them being huge assets. Sadly We aren't playing that formation yet but its 4-3-3 and its supposed to be LVG favorite. Think he needs to stop trying to be cute and play it. Shaw isn't a wingback.
 
It's clear none of them fit his 'philosophy' but I believe he pretty much had no choice on them.

All three add quality to a squad that desperately needed it and Di Maria brought the fans completely onside.

If LVG can't make them work when it's obvious he's already making mistakes by playing them where and how he does though...
 
Shaw is solid but he doesn't beat defenders and can't cross. Would rather have young in there.
 
Not sure what LVG's thinking on Herrera was but Shaw was a typical United signing and we needed a LB and we needed class and fast so Di Maria was a no brainer.
 
Obviously not.

We know Shaw and Herrera had been lined up beforehand and he just gave the nod of approval to them for whatever reason. We can hardly say LvG was the impetus behind them in that case.

Di Maria was probably a glory signing for the club more than anything though I'm sure Van Gaal liked the idea of signing a multi-functional player of that ilk. He just hasn't figured out how to bed him in with everyone else, though that's not surprising given how much we've been chopping and changing generally. Still, if LvG was that big a fan of Robben then I'm sure he can see the value of Di Maria too.

Probably worth pointing out that both Di Maria and Shaw have started pretty much every time they've been fit so it's not like he doesn't rate them or anything.

Didn't LvG usually work with a DoF anyway though? So I wonder what sort of set up he generally likes to use?
 
I think the truth is Van Gaal is yet to settle on what he wants us to look like long term and is shoehorning players in in the interim.

I think he signed off on all of them, but when Di Maria became available after Herrara had already been signed it made Herrara already surplus to requirements.

I think next season we might be looking at Mata and Falcao going, and a 4-3-3 with Rooney behind Van Persie.
 
LVG needs to either play them in their proper positions (now that most of the squad are fit) or not use them at all (if he doesnt want them).
 
It's all well and him good bleating on about his great and wonderful philosophy, but if he can't figure out how to best utilise the players he had at his disposal then it doesn't say an awful lot about him does it?

We'd be doing a damn sight better than we are right now if we played these players in their actual positions.
 
Didn't Van Gaal mention before signing Di Maria that he needed a player like him to play 433? Sign him up and we're still playing 352, it just baffles me.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Does anyone wonder if Van Gaal was really the impetus behind these signings?

Two of them scouted before he started and the other a statement signing our CEO has clearly been desperate to make since he took over.

Van Gaal likes to play a controlled, possession game where central midfielders need to pass like metronomes. Di Maria and Herrera are far too lose in possesion to play in that kind of role. Liable to be caught in possession and miss the target with their passes. Fairly sure their pass completion % wasn't great in Spain either (someone correct me if I'm wrong?) Two of our most creative players but just don't fit this "philosophy" we keep hearing about.

Di Maria can't play as a wingback and can't convince Van Gaal to play with wingers. So he's playing him as a striker. Where we're over-stocked already. He blatantly doesn't fancy Hererra, who hasn't actually played that badly. And Shaw is a great defender but a hapless wing back.

It's all very disconcerting.
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Wait, what?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Does anyone wonder if Van Gaal was really the impetus behind these signings?

Two of them scouted before he started and the other a statement signing our CEO has clearly been desperate to make since he took over.

Van Gaal likes to play a controlled, possession game where central midfielders need to pass like metronomes. Di Maria and Herrera are far too lose in possesion to play in that kind of role. Liable to be caught in possession and miss the target with their passes. Fairly sure their pass completion % wasn't great in Spain either (someone correct me if I'm wrong?) Two of our most creative players but just don't fit this "philosophy" we keep hearing about.

Di Maria can't play as a wingback and can't convince Van Gaal to play with wingers. So he's playing him as a striker. Where we're over-stocked already. He blatantly doesn't fancy Hererra, who hasn't actually played that badly. And Shaw is a great defender but a hapless wing back.

It's all very disconcerting.
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I've no doubt van Gaal was supportive of the Di Maria signing. Herrera and Shaw were clearly signed already though. I suspect van Gaal would have ultimately "signed off" on them but there's no doubt they weren't his players.

That said, I like all 3 of them.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I know but if we're joining in the madness shouldn't it be for players the system is built around? As it stands, they don't even fit it.
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I think that Shaw can operate in his 4-3-3 just fine and that is Van Gaal's preferred formation. He did say that he sanctioned the Herrera deal too 'I said yes because I like this player'. Di Maria also performed excellently in a 4-3-3 for Madrid.
 
Raw said:
Didn't Van Gaal mention before signing Di Maria that he needed a player like him to play 433? Sign him up and we're still playing 352, it just baffles me.
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Think that's down to our defence more than anything. It's hard to play a system with fullbacks when you only have two of them and they're both likely to be injured on any given day.
 
I dont give a shit about his philosophy, he expects them to adapt, how about he adapts his fecking philosophy to the players we have here. Even in the long run, his philosophy will end badly. Possession is nice and all that, but he restraints our players to backpasses and not taking risks at all when the opposition sits back and parks the bus. Every time he let them play, with a back 4 must be said, we looked very good. Obviously Shaw and Di Maria will be class eventually, i see dark for Herrera. Dont think he will be here in 2 seasons if he cant adapt to a more patient and risk averse type of player, which i cant see and that would be a bit of a shame too, i like this aspect of his game.
 
RedDevilCanuck said:
Shaw is solid but he doesn't beat defenders and can't cross. Would rather have young in there.
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He was looking really promising when we were playing the diamond. Was able to overlap when di Maria was on the left which he's obviously more comfortable with. The wingback thing is just rubbish.
 
Also worth pointing out that when we signed Herrera we didn't know we'd be getting Di Maria or that Fellaini would actually turn out to be useful. Tbh I think we'd have said he needed his head checked if he had turned down Herrera at the time given how weak our midfield looked.
 
All 3 of them have promise to be great players here from what I have seen to be fair. Maybe we are being abit harsh criticizing them 5 months into their first season in a new league which has been a season where all 3 of them have constantly had injuries anyway (Shaw in particular that may apply to)
 
It doesn't say much good for Van Gaal that he refuses to build a system around the players he has at his disposal. In stead he wants everyone to adapt to his style of play and it's just a bunch of square pegs in round holes, for no reason other than Van Gaal wanting to overcomplicate stuff to outsmart everyone. At the moment, the only ones he's outsmarting are his own fecking players.
 
Three very good players, one of which is one of the best in the world when played in the correct position. All three players should be fixtures in the first team, in their best positions and contributing heavily towards our winning of games.

As it stands, two of them are out of position and the other can barely get on the pitch. It's a nonsense, really. Why do our managers always do it the hard way?
 
So are we suppose to assume that Woodward was behind these signings and Van Gaal just said Yes? I don't subscribe to that personally. He knows what sort of club we are and he isn't at one of those foreign clubs where they go over a managers head to sign/sell players. Sure he may not have had the best of knowledge of Shaw but I'm sure with the work he puts into preparation of matches there's probably a similar level of attentiveness towards players he signs so I'm sure that he would've seen enough of Shaw to be convinced, likewise Herrera, he was probably one of the top 3 midfielders in Spain playing outside of the Top 3, alongside Ittsarupe and Rakitic so I'm sure he would have a certain idea of his abilities and given the fact we'd watched him for about 3 years there was probably enough information about him.

"Or, I should say, we don't have wingers of the highest level, like Ronaldo or Di Maria or somebody like that. So, I have to play another way –and you have seen that already. I only buy when I think we need to buy –the position that is necessary." Louis Van Gaal specifically referencing Di Maria, note the fact he uses the words winger and highest level, which would indicate he a) sees his future there and b) rates him highly, yet the only times he has played him there were for 3 games (City, Chelsea, Palace) all of which he was poor in, so maybe Van Gaal is now trying to work out where's best for him but also for the team.

Personally I think he's been bluffing his way through the formations this season, at first people gave him a chance because we had no full-backs, then we moved to the diamond which had us playing good football but he was clearly unhappy with the way we defended, especially against Leicester, West Ham & Everton so we switched to the 4141 for a couple of games before settling back on the 352. I wouldn't be surprised if he considers that the main formation for us now because of the results we've got with it and as a result is trying to shoehorn the players into the formation rather than using the formation which would best suit our players (4222, 433, 442 diamond). Edit: I also remember reading an article a couple of days ago where they summed up his first season at Bayern and it was quite similar to this but I remember them saying that he sort of stumbled across a formation with them and it brought success so he kept on playing it, that to me is what's happening with the 352.

I certainly don't think that they were signed over his head or with no knowledge, I'm just not quite sure that he knows what either of Herrera or Di Maria's best positions are and as such is trying to place them everywhere he can. I also don't agree that "He blatantly doesn't fancy Hererra" as I think he does, just last week he was claiming that Herrera was class. I think he knows his ability but atm has the problem of not being able to fit him in, especially in a 352 where there are only really 2 positions he can play, one of which it seems the captain has permanently taken. I just think that the main problem here is Van Gaal and his inability to see past the 352, if we play a diamond we have the options of:

Carrick/Blind
Fellaini ---- Herrera/Di Maria
Mata/Rooney
Rooney --- Falcao/Van Persie

Which means players will get dropped but it provides a lot better balance to the side. In short, I think we suggested those players, he had a look at them and thought they would suit the team, now that we're seemingly playing 352 he's having difficulties trying to get these players in the side and also in getting the best out of them.

Edit: Also everyone seems to automatically assume that the Herrera deal was already being worked on, but by who? Moyes' summer targets by all accounts (see Bob Cass, Miguel Delaney etc. )were Kroos, Carvalho, Fabregas no one over here or in Spain even mentioned Herrera, in fact when news did break most of the journalists were shocked because they'd heard nothing about it, so I don't agree that he would have been signed no matter what. Shaw maybe, Herrera nope, in my eyes he's definitely a Van Gaal signing.
 
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They will all prove to be good singings, we just need to stick to the diamond formation and work from there. It was quite clearly the most effective one for us and it lead to some brilliant football at times.
 
Di Maria has not looked arsed a lot of the time I've seen him play.
Granted, that might not be the case but, I can't help but get that vibe off him.

Shaw will be fine. Herrera to
 
MTR said:
He wasn't and thank god for this. His only transfers for Bayern were Pranjic and Braafheid.

Robben and others were bought by administration, not him. He's truly awful when it comes to identifying transfer targets.
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I don't really know much about his transfer dealings in the past. I doubt it's that bad, is it really? He has one invaluable trait Fergie had, and that's to actually bring on players, identify great potential and mould players.

There is a problem with not having a defense he fully trusts, so if it takes us signing a top level defender for us to be able to benefit the whole team and the players (who can then play in their actual positions), we should buy that defender asap. However, we've got certain problems in every position. In attack we've got 3 star strikers, none of whom have really excelled this season, with little pace, often cramped into the same team at the cost of a decent midfield. And midfield has been kinda decimated while Blind, Di Maria and Herrera have been out. And before that, Carrick. And we're not blessed with wingers either..

I think the level of disappointment today is understandable given that we finally had a full squad to select from and we had a very imbalanced side that looked a bit toothless given its individual riches.
 
MTR said:
He wasn't and thank god for this. His only transfers for Bayern were Pranjic and Braafheid.

Robben and others were bought by administration, not him. He's truly awful when it comes to identifying transfer targets.
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As far as I remember, Robben was the signing he really pushed for but a few others that were signed by the board he just didn't use.
With our players, I reckon he gave the go ahead with Herrera and Shaw while the club had been scouting them for years anyway, but Di Maria is the player he really wanted, with him even name dropping him. Falcao I think was the one Woodward kind of wanted as a statement type thing, but Di Maria, Rojo and Blind were definitely the three that Van Gaal wanted.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I think the truth is Van Gaal is yet to settle on what he wants us to look like long term and is shoehorning players in in the interim.

I think he signed off on all of them, but when Di Maria became available after Herrara had already been signed it made Herrara already surplus to requirements.

I think next season we might be looking at Mata and Falcao going, and a 4-3-3 with Rooney behind Van Persie.
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That would mean selling the 2 younger players and relying on an injury prone 33 year old and a 30 year old.

I don't buy into the idea of Mata being sold. Selling Mata and not signing Falcao when we will be playing CL football, have more games and with our injury record, we need to be building on our squad. Not selling.
 
MTR said:
He wasn't and thank god for this. His only transfers for Bayern were Pranjic and Braafheid.

Robben and others were bought by administration, not him. He's truly awful when it comes to identifying transfer targets.
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Robben was his signing.
 
I think his transfer recordings have been pretty suspect in the past because of his arrogance; 'I can make any player better' vibe, if he seriously believes that, would he really spend a lot of time researching and scouting players he wants? And he has mellowed quite a lot in his last few years, his self-belief must have been crazy at Barcelona, Ajax and even at Bayern to an extent.
 
shaw is simply not a wing back. he is not productive enough to be there. ashley young has proven to be a better wing back. even blind, who just returned after about 2 months out injured did much much better for the 20 minutes he was there than what shaw did for 70.
 
He definitely wanted di maria, the rest i think he just took our word for it.

You should've added falcao to that list by the way, because signing him seemed to trigger some tactical changes, mainly dropping rooney to midfield.

The worst thing about this is that he doesn't seem to pay attention to how to get the best of those players, all he seems to care about is getting them to do what he thinks they should do, but not necessarily what they actually could.

He has no idea how to use di maria yet, to the point where we now have this farce of playing him as a striker and playing a striker as midfielder, and because he needs pace upfront, he decided to drop falcao completely and have wilson instead on the bench.

He doesn't rate herrera for reasons i don't know.

It just feels that like an unneeded ego boosting never ending failing experiment. Are we really that confident that the glazers are going to keep this galactico spending for long? after zero improvement why should they?
 
I think Shaw was a good buy. When played at LB in the back four he has done quite well. Although if LvG is determined to play the 3-5-2 then I guess you could argue that none of them fit. It seemed like the 3-5-2 was temporary but now I am not so sure.
 
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