His season won't be in his own hands imo, it will be almost entirely down to how Darmian performs. It seems Van Gaal likes Tony because he is such a simple, tidy player who takes absolutely no risks and barely loses the ball - close to having the shortest average pass length in the squad, and an 89% pass completion ratio last season - and it is pretty predictable what you will get from him. Darmian has impressed me in pre-season but with more positivity and risk to his game comes more ball losses, and the extent to which he learns to choose his moments will decide which gets more games, I think.