Di Maria, Herrera and Shaw

Every half decent manager needs to at least be able to use at least 2-3 exceptional players in ANY system. What good will it be to just buy HIS players when nowadays hardly any manager stays at a club for more than 3 years anyway? After all we can't buy a completely new expensive team everytime a manager changes.
So even if these 3 weren't wanted buy him then he should have just said it for God sake, and Shaw/Herrera fair enough, but there's no excuse to not know how to use Di Maria or not be thankful that he was getting him. It's not like we have Ronaldo/Messi/Hazard/D. Silva so Di Maria wasn't needed or anything like that. And HIS target was Vermaelen, so thank you Woody if Di Maria actually was Woody's signing.
Look at Ancelotti, Kroos and James are completely different players to Di Maria and Xabi Alonso but Ancelotti is still making them perform well for the team more often than not.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Mangala was 42m. Luiz went for 40m. The financials have changed in the past 12 months quite a lot.
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For every stupidly expensive transfer, there are also many good and "cheap" players. However you're right in general, (top) clubs get more regularly fleeced when they buy players.

Trizy said:
And Young can do those?
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This season ? Yes and better than Shaw so far.
 
I like all three signings. I hate how they're being used.

Shaw is going to make a top left back for years. Play him there. And not as a wingback.

Di Maria is one of the best central attacking players around. Play him there. And not as a striker/touch line hugging winger.

Herrera looks a very intelligent attack minded central midfielder. Doesn't play enough.
 
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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It is odd. They fitted the football we played with the diamond formation really well. But ever since we moved to slow patient buildup and the 352, these players, and many many others, look like fish out of water. We played a midifeld of mata rooney and Carrick yesterday with di Maria as a striker. That's absurd. The two can be second strikers were sitting in midifeld and the guy that likes of run at defenders up top.
 
LvG gave the go ahead for Shaw and Herrera signing in the summer. I am not sure why would we buy players if the manager isn't interested in any of them.
 
Despite LvG's reputation of loving prep time more than Batman, I think he underestimated the league he was coming to manage in, in fact I'm sure he acknowledged he was caught out by the pace and physicality. In hindsight I think he may well have only signed Shaw of the 3.

I do however think he signed off on all 3 buys, and I imagine he envisions playing Di Maria as part of a front 3 once he gets more wide options in, and with a switch to 4-3-3 we'll see the best of Shaw. If he is calling the shots I expect to see one or two Caf favourites sold in favour of a more tactically astute, physical, possession based midfield player or two who are versatile.
 
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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Well that's the real worry here, isn't it? That Van Gaal isn't an expert in the transfer market, so is letting Woody act as unofffical DoF.

If that's really happening the whole project is doomed from the start. At tremendous financial cost.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Well that's the real worry here, isn't it? That Van Gaal isn't an expert in the transfer market, so is letting Woody act as unofffical DoF.

If that's really happening the whole project is doomed from the start. At tremendous financial cost.
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Bit dramatic!

We have brought in some fantastic players. As of yet Van Gaal hasn't worked out how to utilise them. Look at Southampton. They don't have a better squad than us but Koeman is getting the best out of them. Van Gaal has to start doing the same.
 
I get the impression that Van Gaal assessed the squad and thought the 3-5-2 was the perfect way to get our best players playing at the time (at the time Rooney, RVP and Mata all in their best positions). He briefly tried the diamond which had the same benefits but after Leicester binned it, in my opinion prematurely. It seems that he's still stuck in that belief that 3-5-2 is best, despite all evidence showing our team isn't comfortable with it, particularly our defenders being unable to become the creative force that the system encourages. With the team we had out yesterday does everyone really feel the result wouldn't have been different with:

Valencia Jones Smalling Shaw
________Carrick
____Blind____Di Maria
_________Mata
____Rooney___RVP

That suits every player in the team, particularly at Old Trafford where the onus is on us to win. On the face of it it seems Van Gaal hasn't reassessed the squad in light of signing particularly the three players mentioned by the OP.
 
Add Falcao to that list and that's 4 out of our 6 summer signings who I feel weren't bought by the manager.
 
finneh said:
I get the impression that Van Gaal assessed the squad and thought the 3-5-2 was the perfect way to get our best players playing at the time (at the time Rooney, RVP and Mata all in their best positions). He briefly tried the diamond which had the same benefits but after Leicester binned it, in my opinion prematurely. It seems that he's still stuck in that belief that 3-5-2 is best, despite all evidence showing our team isn't comfortable with it, particularly our defenders being unable to become the creative force that the system encourages. With the team we had out yesterday does everyone really feel the result wouldn't have been different with:

Valencia Jones Smalling Shaw
________Carrick
____Blind____Di Maria
_________Mata
____Rooney___RVP

That suits every player in the team, particularly at Old Trafford where the onus is on us to win. On the face of it it seems Van Gaal hasn't reassessed the squad in light of signing particularly the three players mentioned by the OP.
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Against weaker opposition we could even field Herrera instead of Blind. Blind could also play the Carrick role and Rooney Mata's which would allow to play Falcao at times.
It makes too much sense but it supposedly lacks balance..... in contrast to that wonderful 5-3-2 system that makes us look rock solid at the back and play brilliant attacking football at the same time...
 
i don't think he is a very good judge of players and that is affecting our team & formation.

we should just ask him to select a core group of players and get on with it (sell those who he doesn't want). deny him any transfer budget since we will just be wasting it. that will prompt him to apply him brain and play effectively.
 
Getsme said:
Maybe he had no choice?
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How many LBs were available last summer? How many midfielders were willing to move (apart from Fabregas of course) last summer which could have strengthened the team? Are you really telling me that a midfield of Carrick, Blind, Herrera, Fellaini isn't good enough?
 
Ainu said:
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.
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Exactly this. While it has worked for some players (Young, Fellaini and Valencia), it has clearly affected others (Mata, Defence, Di Maria and Herrera recently).
 
coolredwine said:
How many LBs were available last summer? How many midfielders were willing to move (apart from Fabregas of course) last summer which could have strengthened the team? Are you really telling me that a midfield of Carrick, Blind, Herrera, Fellaini isn't good enough?
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No, what I'm saying is they may not have been LVGs signings, Shaw and Herrera were effectively signed before he was the manager, He doesn't know where to play Di Maria, and Falcao was signed on the last day of the transfer window even though he said we lacked balance in certain positions, mainly attacking areas.
I'm not saying they have been bad signings, they haven't, but the only players he has a plan for at the moment is Rojo and Blind.
 
Getsme said:
No, what I'm saying is they may not have been LVGs signings, Shaw and Herrera were effectively signed before he was the manager, He doesn't know where to play Di Maria, and Falcao was signed on the last day of the transfer window even though he said we lacked balance in certain positions, mainly attacking areas.
I'm not saying they have been bad signings, they haven't, but the only players he has a plan for at the moment is Rojo and Blind.
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LvG was confirmed as a United manager in May. Shaw and Herrera were signed late June. I am very much sure he would have already known that those two players are on the radar and about to be signed. With a club which had no LB and a non existant midfield, he would have definitely known what he needs to do.

He knows where to play di Maria. He is just trying to make him work in a position where another player of the same ilk worked wonders. The only bone of contention that I have is with Falcao. Apart from that, I do think he was aware and gave the go ahead to sign those players. To dismiss as they aren't his players is just silly.
 
Do we really have this possession philosophy, though? I know we're being told a lot but I'm seeing a whole lot of hoofing.
 
Shaw will be fine, he's a kid but has massive potential. He needs a little patience but he will eventually become a mainstay here IMO

ADMs talent is such that if he's available you take him. What LVG has got to do now is get the best out of him and he in turn work best for the team. I'm not sure LVG knows where best to position him at present, playing him up top yesterday (and wilson in place of falcao before that) is an acknowledgement that we badly lack pace up top and we're unable to stretch teams as a result. it failed yesterday so hopefully thats the end of that experiment but something tells me it wont be!

Herera is perhaps the strangest one as he's struggling to get in the side at all. on the surface his passing game is such that you'd think he'd be ideal for a possession based game but it looks like LVG is somewhat unimpressed so far. perhaps he's not following instructions like he should be? LVG doesn't stand for that! Hopefully he gets a run in the side as he looks a player to me and a bigger goal threat than i thought he was before he arrived - maybe thats the problem though, does he want to play final third like everyone else?
 
Red_Aaron said:
Shaw will be fine, he's a kid but has massive potential. He needs a little patience but he will eventually become a mainstay here IMO
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Not if we persist with this formation imo. I don't think he'll ever become a good enough wingback.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
We clearly do. Look at our possession stats if you're in doubt.
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Okay then. Must be mostly in our own half then, between the three CB's, and that's probably more because we're unable to move the ball forward. In the opponent's half, we commit far too few players to play possession football. There aren't enough bodies to pass it to.
 
Herrera isn't super consistent with his passing wasn't he hugely successful for high press possession based athletic Bilbao side under bielsa?

Di Maria doesn't strike me as a player suited to it. His best ever season (last season) was for europes best counter attackers. His driving runs were part of what made that a system work.
 
We were are badly missing Ashley Young in the 3-5-2 as he is the only legitimate consistent threat from wing back. Shaw just isn't suited to that role at all, he seems afraid to go past a man and his crossing needs improving. He is primarily a defensive full back. He would look like the best left back in the league if he was playing for Chelsea.

For Di Maria yesterday I lay the blame at Van Gaal's door, he is using him in the wrong position. Van Gaal is rigidly sticking to his 3-5-2' that is the stubbornness we have heard about. He seems desperately to want to cram in Rooney, Mata, Van Persie and Falcao into the same team. He is especially fond of Van Persie which I think is a problem. Van Gaal needs to start being ruthless and play the best team, not the biggest name players. I don't think that the new players are the problem here.
 
.Rossi said:
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.
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Yeah I get that feeling too. Just dont think he wanted to join utd. So far its been scarily similar to Ozil at Arsenal. Looked great in his opening couple of games, then the weather got bad and he doesnt look up for it
 
I'm a big fan of Shaw, but I don't know if he has enough about him to be a wingback, who is to be the sole attacking outlet on the left flank. I think he's a great defender, and strangely for a modern fullback, his best asset is defending. He's got the pace to overlap and get a good cross in. He needs to play in a back four. I also wonder if playing in a position which the England set up doesn't really use will harm his chances of playing for the national team. If it does, then that certainly won't make him happy.
 
Did he put them on the radar? No, that was previous regimes and previous scouts. The signings were lined up. But I am 100% sure all were approved by Van Gaal. And he's fairly honest in the media - he'd have made clear if he didn't.

His problem isn't the signings, it's the bizarre way he's setting up our squad at the minute.
 
Jev said:
Okay then. Must be mostly in our own half then, between the three CB's, and that's probably more because we're unable to move the ball forward. In the opponent's half, we commit far too few players to play possession football. There aren't enough bodies to pass it to.
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It's possession for possession's sake at the moment, so you're not wrong. It's as if possession is the end goal, rather than, ehm, goals!
 
Also surprised the OP didnt mention Falcao as well

I would be shocked if LVG knew anything about this.
 
Randall Flagg said:
Also surprised the OP didnt mention Falcao as well

I would be shocked if LVG knew anything about this.
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Yeah, I should have mentioned Falcao. It's just that other three were on my mind after watching Shaw and Di Maria look like square pegs in round holes, followed by Hererra coming off the bench to watch the ball get hoofed constantly over his head.

Today is not a good day for my faith in the manager. So many things bothering 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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As I've mentioned before, any thoughts about LVGs transfer history has to be seen in the context of how much time he had after arriving in Manchester, and the state of the squad when he arrived. (I'm assuming that during the run up to the World Cup, and during Holland's long run in it, LVG was only able to give a cursory inspection of the squad. A bit of light reading or DVD viewing after a day's training with Holland.)

Bear in mind that when he arrived the squad was dysfunctional in terms of playing style and personnel - as exemplified by the issue of Mata. Our record signing, a number 10, when we played a formation without a number 10 position in it. Stupid.

So what Van Gaal faced was not simply assessing some gaps in the team and filling them, or upgrading a couple of positions. He has to assess each member of a bloated squad of whom only DDG and Rooney had had a particularly good season previously; figure out who could improve with the right motivation and who was just not up to the task; find a formation to broadly fit the players we had & get them used to it; then identify players to bring in to replace the one's who didn't make the cut.

Compare that to Moyes (not Moyes-bashing here, just comparing) - he had a squad that had 7 or 8 players coming from decent seasons, both attack and defense was stocked with a mix of talent and experience. They played a formation he was accustomed to. We needed more bodies in midfield and we also needed better quality in wide areas, but didn't need to get rid of many, just bench them and get someone ahead of them. My view is that Moyes could have bought 3 or 4 players, slotted them into an existing system and had a team that would have been easily capable of hitting the top 4. It didn't need a hatchet job, or a radical overhaul. An evolution would have been fine.

If LVG had been in that kind of situation and bought a handful of players who didn't fit the roles he wanted, I'd be more critical. But what LVG started with was a big jumbly mess, a radical overhaul was needed, and he only had 6 weeks in which to do it.

What LVG's had to do is make a bunch of snap decisions about who to bring in, who to keep and let go, then try and make them all work. Its inevitable that some of those decisions wouldn't be ideal, and some won't work at all, but I really don't see the alternative. Should he have gone into the season without those players? Some deals take a long time to negotiate, even if we don't see the full story from the outside. Shaw, for example, had been worked on since January we believe. If he put the KB on Shaw and Herrera, then ended up with no-one, we'd have been worse off. There's no obvious players he could have got instead that moved last summer (at least none available late summer for a cheeky last minute transfer).

As for ADM specifically - for better or worse United fans now have the club many have craved for a while, one that sees an outstanding talent, buys it, and then figures out how best to utilise it. I have mixed feelings about such a prospect. However if I'd seem ADM ripping up France with PSG having been linked to us, I'd probably be complaining too I guess.
 
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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How about he change his system to suit the players, it's the managers job to get the best out of his players which 3-5-2 isn't.
 
Dante said:
Fergie worked the other way round. He fit the system to the players. I miss him.
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You are not the only one my friend. I can guarantee he would either be first or second if he were in charge and that's without all the shiny new toys.
 
Shaw will make a good left back in a back 4.

Herrera will make a good midfielder in a 2 or a 3.

Di Maria would make a good lefty in a 4-2-3-1 or a good left mid in a 4-3-3.

In short they all seem like decent signings but we aren't playing to their strengths at all.
 
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